Shikhondo: Soul Eater

Although it doesn't get talked about much, South Korea has a long history of making great arcade shoot 'em ups. This is the country that gave us Pollux, Gulf Storm, Flying Tiger, Blue Hawk and the rare 1995 gem R-Shark. Korea's newest export is Shikhondo: Soul Eater, an enchantingly stylish shooter starring a pair of fashionable women with an uncanny ability to kill everything in sight. If you've never played a Korean shoot 'em up before, Shikhondo is a great place to start.

From what I can tell, there isn't a whole lot of story or setup here. This is a vertical shooter that takes inspiration from Asian mythology and century's old art. You play as either the Grim Reaper or The Girl, a pair of young women who fly around the screen shooting down demons and collecting souls. It's a short but exciting bullet hell action game where the goal is to fight your way through five challenging stages and kill every last boss.

Shikhondo is a gorgeous game with absolutely stunning backgrounds. It looks like you're flying over the kinds of elaborate paintings or murals that date back hundreds of years. There's almost too much detail to take in, especially when you're in the middle of dodging and weaving around a thousand enemy bullets. There are times when I just want to sit back and experience every inch of the hand-drawn artwork, but that's rarely an option.

When you finally get over how good the game looks, you'll discover a fun little shooter that gets all the fundamentals right. Right off the bat, I like that the two characters have completely different attacks and special moves. Grim Reaper has a wide spread attack and The Girl has a shot that will hone in on the nearby enemies. By pulling the right trigger, both characters will focus their shot and reduce speed, making it a bit easier to move around the bullets and stay alive.

Dodging the enemy fire is not only good for your health, but also works to slowly increase a special power gauge that will allow you to unleash all hell. This can be coupled with the already powerful soul attacks you're packing, allowing you to not only wipe the screen of all enemies and bullets, but also destroy the next group with an even stronger blast. But keep in mind that the soul attacks are limited, so you can't go around unleashing the maximum power whenever you want.

While the action and levels are nice, I was especially impressed with the crazy boss designs. These are epic fights with characters that barely make sense. Best of all, each of these fights has two completely different parts. For example, the upside-down naked woman will run around the screen wagging her tail and spitting out green bullets, but her next form, which shows her being eaten by some sort of animal, will punish you with red bullets. There are a lot of patterns to memorize and boss designs to be confused by.

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Part of the reason why this game never feels too chaotic is because developer DeerFarm understands the basics and nails the fundamentals. One of the things I love is that the character's hit box is displayed as a shining orb that you can always keep track of. No matter how crazy the action games, you just need to keep track of that glowing orb and you can slip through enemy fire like a pro. As far as bullet hell shooters go, I found this to be one of the more fair ones. It's punishing and sometimes overwhelming, but also accessible and fun to master.

This is a game I enjoyed playing through multiple times, which is not always the case with shooters. But for as good as the action is, I found myself wholly underwhelmed by the anticlimactic conclusion. Part of the problem is that the game doesn't actually build to anything. That is to say, you could play these stages and bosses in any order and still have pretty much the same exact experience. But my real issue comes after level five, when the game just ends. There's no cinema or anything interesting, just a credit roll that you can select from the options at any time. I get that most people aren't playing this for an amazing ending, but it would have been nice to see something. As it is, the game just leaves us hanging. That's a terrible way to leave an otherwise great shoot 'em up.

From the incredible backgrounds to the fast-paced action, Shikhondo: Soul Eater gets almost everything right. This is an immensely fun and satisfying shooter with incredible bosses, stunning graphics and great gameplay. On the other hand, the game suffers from being a bit light on content and wholly anticlimactic. That shouldn't bother most fans of the genre, who will find a great looking and playing game from a country you don't always associate with shoot 'em ups.