PopSlinger

From R-Type to Contra to Gun.Smoke, the 1980s was an amazing decade full of fun and wildly different shoot ‘em ups. If you liked dodging bullets and blowing everything up in sight, then there was a game for you. Guaranteed. Now comes PopSlinger, a shooter that wants to take you back to the decade that gave us hair metal and acid-washed jeans. It’s a neon-filled action game that may wrap itself in the trappings of the 1980s, but stops short of paying homage to the classic shooters of that era. Will that get in the way of your nostalgia trip? Find out now when I review PopSlinger from Funky Can Creative.

No, you’re not having déjà vu, this is the same throwback shooter that was released two years ago on Switch and PC. Now it’s time for PlayStation and Xbox owners to be introduced to Ria Carbon, a spunky and aggressively upbeat hero who is tasked with using a bunch of soda-inspired guns to save the universe from dark forces. She’s joined by the spirit of Gin, a former PopSlinger, who is cynical and speaks with an almost monotone droll. Together, the two polar opposites fight against the Corazones, a group of anime-inspired characters whose hearts have been corrupted and need to be popped.

This is a good-looking action game that is clearly inspired by the look and characters found in a lot of American riffs on Japanese anime. I was immediately reminded of shows like Steven Universe and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, especially when it came to the Corazones and their unique (and always silly) stories. There’s a really fun dynamic between the two leads, and I was endlessly amused by Gin’s frustration with the always bubbly and upbeat Ria.

In fact, the story and 1980s trappings are so much fun that it almost overshadows the shoot ‘em up mechanics. Unlike most run ‘n gun shooters where you are just looking to kill anybody in sight, you will want to be a little more selective in PopSlinger. There’s a color gimmick in this game that will have you trying to kill four similar enemies in order to earn power-ups from Gin. For example, you will want to kill four yellow enemies in a row, followed by four red or purple. You can start tying these colors together to create useful powers and boost your score.

The trick is that the four yellow enemies might not be in a row, forcing you to dodge purple or red bad guys in search of that fourth yellow enemy. And all this is happening while your combo timer ticks down, so you better hurry and find that fourth yellow bad guy. The color-collection will break the moment Ria gets hit or kills the wrong-colored enemy, so there is some strategy involved in maximizing the game’s systems in order to earn as many points as possible.

As I said at the top, Ria battles the Corazones and the rest of the dark forces using a series of soda-inspired guns. We start out with a pretty typical single-shot gun, followed by a spread shot and a sustained bazooka shot that looks like it came out of one of those Marvel vs. Capcom games. There’s also a weapon that acts like a soda grenade launcher, hurting anything inside of the splash zone. These are fun variations of the standard weapons and it’s cute how Ria yells out the gun’s name whenever she switches between them on the fly.

As the levels get harder, you’ll run into enemies with differently-shaped shields. Each shape can only be defeated by a certain gun, so you can’t get lazy and rely on the spread shot to do all the work. Switching between the different weapons is a big part of this game and the strategy, and getting good at quickly cycling guns is the only way to complete some of the later stages.

It’s here where we start to see the inherent problems with the gameplay. Let’s start with the obvious issue – Ria can only shoot left or right. This is the kind of game where you can walk all around the level, but your shooting is surprisingly limited. You’ll have to be directly in front or behind the enemies you want to kill, which will obviously put Ria (and her color combo) in a great deal of danger. This isn’t so bad at first, but becomes a big issue in the second half of the game, after the different shields are introduced.

The big concern is the speed. Or, more specifically, the leisurely approach to the action. Aside from the big bazooka blast, your guns shoot slowly and switching between weapons takes longer than you might expect. Even if it’s just a few seconds, that’s often just enough time for an enemy to rush in and get a cheap hit on our hero. You’ll find that once you pop an enemy’s shield, they’ll bum rush Ria and stick to her like glue. This is especially frustrating when you’re battle waves of bad guys, as the arenas are small and boxed in. A lot of your success will come down to memorizing what enemies have which shield and then killing the big guys as quickly as possible.

It doesn’t help that the different enemy shields are a little confusing. Look, I get it, it’s easy to know which shield is which when there’s just one or you have a second to register its shape. However, when there are four or five shielded characters coming at you at once, it can feel a little overwhelming. And it doesn’t help that the shields aren’t color-coded. A perfect example of this is the blue squiggly line shield, which you would think would be defeated with your blue gun. But it’s not. It requires the green soda grenade launcher gun. Obviously, you will memorize the shapes over time, but that’s just one example of how the game seemingly goes out of its way to confuse you.

It's also worth mentioning that the difficulty is all over the place. This is the kind of game that will seems almost too easy for the first half, only to immediately become insanely difficult. And once you’ve managed to overcome that difficulty spike, it’s right back to being too easy. This is only compounded by the relatively short story. There aren’t that many levels to beat, and the few that are here are a lot shorter than I would have liked. This is the type of action game that would have benefited greatly from having twice as many stages, as shoot ‘em up fans will likely have no problem beating PopSlinger in only one or two sittings.

Even though the action doesn’t feel much like the classic shooters from the 1980s, I like the game’s look and style. The heroes and boss enemies do most of the heavy lifting here, and I have a hunch that if I remember anything about this game, it’s going to be those colorful characters. You can see the developer toying with a lot of great ideas and concepts, but I would argue that it doesn’t all come together in the end. This is a game with a cool story and great characters that is undermined by disappointing shoot ‘em up mechanics. I may not be able to enthusiastically recommend PopSlinger, but I can’t wait to see what Funky Can Creative does next.