Umihara Kawase Fresh!

[b]Dec 24 EDIT[/b]: I've decided to change my review to negative. The English patch was finally delivered and it is machine translated crap, completely unlike other versions of this game. What a slap in the face. I still like this game, but I cannot possibly recommend supporting this release. original review: [h1]about the price:[/h1] It is insane. A port of a year-old super niche indie game should absolutely not cost this much. Worth 20 bucks if you're a fan of the series, maybe? Hopefully this gets a permanent price cut along with some good discounts, otherwise it's a REALLY tough sell. [h1]about the port:[/h1] Obvious Switch port - the on-screen button prompts will not adjust if you use a Playstation or Xbox controller. 720p windowed or fullscreen only, rebindable controls, no issues with performance on my end, much faster loading times than other versions. [h1]missing content:[/h1] Curly and her quests (fun fact: they are in the game files, just not accessible) If the missing content is added, this will be the best version of this game (though the leaderboards are likely way more populated on Switch if you're into time trial competition) [h1]about the game:[/h1] This is the most accessible game in the series yet. If you find any of the main quests too difficult you can resort to using food items which give various boosts (such as longer rope or higher jumps) or playing as Cotton - she can fly on her broom briefly in addition to having Kawase's hook. In my playthrough I felt that the quest mode didn't have any major roadblocks, like every other Umihara game seems to, even without food boosts or Cotton this is the easiest set of levels in the franchise. The quests do get pretty repetitive, and some are so short they're over before they start. The hunger system is really just a disguised timer, so I did not mind that as much as many other players have. The open world here isn't that interesting... I don't think this is the direction the series should go in (if it will go on at all, considering no one bought this). The tighter level design of the previous games was definitely a much better fit. The story is a total mess and you will not be missing out if you skip all the cutscenes. [h1]tl;dr:[/h1] if you've enjoyed the Umihara games, try this one out if it gets a serious discount (or get it on Switch, much cheaper there). Keep in mind that it is pretty different, though. If you haven't played a Umi game before, you probably shouldn't start with this one - the other ones are both cheaper and better in my opinion. If Steam had a neutral option I would've picked that instead - the game is good, but some aspects of the port and the pricing are unacceptable.

A game I already have somewhat mixed feelings on is simply not fresh on PC, pun probably not intended. Forced 1600x900 resolution (and maybe some weird internal res shit too since it looks blurry even for that), Switch controller icons, the new English translation being bad, it's missing content from the Switch/PS4 version (Curly Brace and her missions), the controller config menu is broken if you use English, and to top it all off, is way more expensive than the console ports of the game. Play this on Switch/PS4 instead.

Quick Score: 3/5 Notes: The main thing holding this game back is that the entire main quest/story is a massive slog. It's incredibly tedious. Rather than have traditional platformer levels. All they did was create an open world, and then have 82 different point a to point b quests. Doesn't sound bad on paper, the issue though is that the world is just not very tightly designed. Vast majority of the gameplay is not threatening and just kind of bland. And you will be constantly retreading the same paths over and over and over across all 82 quests. The entire food and hunger system also just kind of gets in the way of the gameplay and doesn't really add anything. The primary saving grace of the game is the challenge levels. These are 23 more traditional platforming stages that are actually very difficult. Unfortunately you are forced to still go through the main story grind to even unlock them all. If not for these levels existing the game would not be a recommend. Just be warned it will take about 4 hours of fairly tedious gameplay before you finally unlock the ability to play all the challenge levels. Your experience may differ if this is your first game in the series, but having this as my last game in the series, the entire main quest felt incredibly boring and easy.

I'm not saying this game is BAD, but it's very underwhelming. First off, it says it's the first Umihara Kawase game with an "open world" and a "story". These are both half-truths. For the "open world", the game actually has you choosing "quests" from the main menu, and while you can often choose from multiple quests at any given time, each quest is a stage that must be completed, meaning you can't accept multiple quests at once. On top of that, many quests have you going to the exact same location. The game tries to give this a spin by telling you to take a different route, but there's nothing stopping you from taking the same path every single time. A huge portion of the map is wasted and the game frequently punishes you for going off the intended path. Later in the game you unlock another playable character, the protagonist from the shoot 'em up series Cotton. She can use her broom to float in the air for a while after jumping, making the game more accessible. She has her own quests too, and the first one contains a jump that, if you fail (and you probably will fail considering the huge loach constantly firing acorns at you), the game sends you to another map that you have no way of leaving other than a secret teleporter that you're likely to never find on your own, meaning that failing that jump equals to resetting the quest. The game also has two secret boss fights accessible through the main overworld area. You're likely to stumble upon one by accident seeing that it's right next to the objective of a few quests and you can see enemies walking into a wall, but if you make the mistake of going into that same wall then you're suddenly fighting a secret boss that dumps you into the same area as the one you go into if you fail the jump mentioned above. Again, no way out of that area aside from the secret teleporter or restarting the quest. The other secret boss is borderline impossible to find on your own (and if you happen to find it early, guess where you end up in after defeating it!). And then the "story". It starts out very inoffensive, goes on to foreshadow some things and set up others, and at the end it throws a bunch of twists that are all disconnected from each other and then the game just ends without explaining anything or having any of those set ups pay off! At the end of one of the last quests the game does something permanent to a recurring character, tricking the player into thinking there's something bigger behind all of it, but it goes nowhere. The hidden diaries that you can find scattered across the world tie into something the game frames as an important plot point, but it had zero relevance to anything that happened during the story. The translation is also really bad but that might fall into "so bad it's good" territory (for example, a female character often gets referred to with the wrong pronouns, and sometimes both pronouns are used within the same cutscene). Also, another important plot point is that Kawase has a map that updates itself every time she visits a new area, yet the player is never able to actually view said map, leading to more moments of frustration in case you actually make the mistake of wanting to explore the world instead of just heading straight to each objective. The challenges are mostly good, though. "Sky Canine" was one level I genuinely loved. There's some levels from the previous games too, but since this has similar physics to Sayonara Umihara Kawase (although the physics here are better than those in Sayonara) those don't play as well (especially Shun's Field 42, which was already the hardest level in the original release, and it's even harder here). One of the challenge levels is arguably the hardest level in the whole franchise, so fans of the series looking for that will find it here, although I can't justify purchasing this just for that either (and you also have to finish the game to unlock that). You can also cook items to give you boosts, but I never did this during the main story as I felt no need to. The story stages weren't all that difficult to justify it, but the option is there for those that want to experiment. Because of Kawase having an HP bar now, the backpacks from the previous games are now used to activate checkpoints in levels. Checkpoints can be infinitely reused, but the level's timer does not reset when you respawn. The timer ticks up instead of down, so there's no time limit. This is probably the reason as to why you can no longer save replays, which had been a staple of the series since the start. One story quest takes over 10 minutes to complete as it's a trip from about the center of the game's world to the absolute highest point. Bosses are also fun and challenging compared to the other installments. For once, they actually took the crab boss from the original game and made it good, so that deserves credit. I can also appreciate the effort in trying to bring back as many enemies as possible from the past games, including the scallops from the original (which are universally hated, but they're fine here since you don't die in one hit and they don't respawn when captured). There are still a few enemies missing, like the octopus or that big fish you couldn't capture, but almost everything's here, and the new enemies are cool too. And special mention to the soundtrack. While I didn't care too much about the underground layers, the overworld and sky area themes are both really good, and the title screen and main menu songs are also very memorable.

yeah, it's good but personally i didn't like it as much as the first three games in terms of physics and pacing. nice graphics and music though. its a lot of fun to just gorge on food and tank damage from the bosses too.

Most of my play time is on Switch. As of 6/8/2020, the text of the game is all in Japanese, but that does not prevent play. The port runs quite well. Umihara Kawase Fresh is an unconventional game in an unconventional series. This franchise is typically about grappling hook platforming using an elastic fishing line and all the quirks of using a springy rubber band to propel yourself into spikes in creative new ways while you invent new creative curse words. The classic games were arcade affairs, single room platforming challenges, 45 minutes to a clear, multiple routes, lots of different, quick, brutal challenges. Fresh is a different beast. It has a story this time, for starters. Kawase shows up in a town of humanoid animals without her memory and decides to take up a job delivering food to them. The world is a single, massive, open world that is woefully underutilized. You would think a game about skillful traversal could benefit from such a world but Fresh doesn't feel like it knows what to do with it. Each mission is instanced, you start at a location and follow arrows to get the destination. There is no map, no fast travel, barely any landmarks to speak of except when the road bottlenecks into a physics set-piece that annoys you for how many times you have to do it. While there are a few pointless hidden things, there is no reason or reward for doing anything but following the arrows to the goal. In fact, if you are caught by a fey mood and wish to actually explore the open world, you're still punished for it. You still have a mission to do and you can't actually leave the world and bank your loot without finishing the mission. So if you go on an adventure and drop through three full zones and go find the hidden boss and beat him for no reason, you're now four zones away from the goal with no guide arrows or any hint at all how to get back to your destination because they had no plan for you to go out and have that sort of fun. You have to quit out or slog back to the path they intended you to take. Some of these missions repeat and in a fairly clever twist to try to teach people how to play this ridiculously difficult game, they send you on the same route but the guide arrows propose a more daring, skill intensive, and quicker path. You are of course free to walk the weenie path again if you are bad at the game, like me. Still, you need to at least try to engage with the hook mechanics or you won't have any fun. The plot certainly isn't worth playing for. The story is a truly insulting waste of time and I honestly think you lose nothing by not having it translated. In an even more futile attempt to justify this unwieldy open world, you have a hunger meter and can collect food along the way. Practically this just means if a mission is running a little long you have to pop into a menu to eat some of your infinite ever-growing collection of food items. Some of these provide little extra buffs, like Platinum game items, unnecessary to beat the game but not unwelcome bonuses. A double jump, a longer grapple line, immunity to knockback, you can make the game a hair easier with these recipes but in the general case you just pause, eat some food, refill the meter, get back to swinging. Umihara Kawase purists, all 5 of them, typically have been less than impressed with Fresh because of all these changes. A tight arcadey design now has a bunch of bloat, pointless hunger meters, large levels of space to hike through rather than densely packed grappling puzzles, and these gripes are understandable. I enjoyed Fresh for what it was, unpleasant parts and all, but if you truly played Umihara Kawase in the past to some degree of mastery (I saw the steam achievement charts, most of you didn't.), it is hard to make an argument for how these changes gave us a better product. That having been said, beggars absolutely cannot be choosers. There is only one name in town for the rubber band physics frustration platformer. Nobody else is going to make an Umihara Kawase game and given how long it was since the last one, most of you will probably be in your graves before we even see another one. Fresh is a fine game, as frustrating as any other Umihara game, but it still has at its core a unique, skill-intensive movement system that nobody else comes close to. It is approachable to newbies but also has a few challenge maps to frustrate veterans.

I got this on sale at 92% off. For that price it's definitely worth it. If you liked the other games from the series and want some more Umihara action, go for it. It's not the best game in the series but it's not as awful as some people make it sound.

First time having a “real” story in an Umihara game is kinda nice, even if it’s not so much a story as it’s just making deliveries. I enjoy the new graphics from the old games, it has a stylized charm to it. The music is as great as ever with new tracks! The world is actually fully connected, as opposed to just levels in the previous games. It’s just such a cozy adventure! While the idea of crafting and making food is nice, I never used it that much, although I’m experienced in the games of Umihara so for first time players it probably came in handy. Still a cool feature! The content is plentiful, especially if you enjoy speedrunning! You can also unlock an additional characters, Cotton, so there’s even more variation to play with! Sadly the quests get repetitive, and you many times do the same paths but from maybe a different starting point. So it does end up being a slog in the end. The only real negative I have is that “Curly” isn’t available on this version, which is a bummer. Also the resolution is a bit blurry, which no option to set it manually. And the translation is kinda weird at times. But other than that it’s a solid and enjoyable game!

Is a port of switch? Yes. Going full screen wont look good but windowed is ok. Except of these things the game really is nice to get on sale, is fun and funny in story, I'll edit my review later as I play, but for now I recommend this on sale.

Fan of the series. Not a well made game, a terrible port. Only positive thing I can say is that they didn't ruin the physics, but you're better off playing other games. Horribly overpriced for quality of content, not even worth it on sale.

海腹川背Freshがくそゲでしょうよ Expanding the formula could work; however, this trash is a piss poor way to set about it Save yourself the time and money; buy the Famicom game ten times instead

Whew, I'm disappointed that I didn't pick this up sooner! A welcome addition to the niche "rubbering-action" game series, Umihara Kawase Fresh isn't afraid to experiment a bit from its roots. I'll first address the negatives people talk about. The port: So this is a port of the Switch version. I didn't play that version but this has everything except the curly brace crossover missions. Unfortunate, but I think it's a good version in the current state on steam (maybe a rough launch?). It worked fine for me with an Xbox 360 controller right away, though I did rebind a little bit. The game ran well and looked and sounded good. The gameplay itself is everything you could ask for in the series, just some good grappling fun. The physics are similar to sayonara and feel like they were well done too. Open world: I thought this would be weird at first, having an open world. However, it flows better than I expected, and it's still very much mission based where you go from point A to point B for a series of quests/challenges. The difference here is that you will see the same sections of map multiple times, but you will have to navigate it in different ways due to enemy placements etc. Even the direction you approach a section of the world makes for a unique challenge, as sometimes you will start the quest at a different spot. Hunger: The cooking system is something different, but not unwelcome. In this game, you have a hunger meter that essentially acts as a timer. You can make recipes to extend this timer as well as getting different buffs to assist such as double jump or less damage. You have health in this entry too, which you can also heal with food. It's a decent way of easing people into the game as food can make it a bit easier. English Translation: Honestly, this game doesn't even need a translation to be enjoyed. Though, the current English patch works just fine. It may not be the best translation, but it results in some fun moments, and I still laughed at some of the story (the pigs want pork pizza???). Story is secondary in an Umihara game anyways, but overall I'd say the translation is fine. Now for some extra information: There are time trial modes where you don't have checkpoints or food, thus are more pure to the old umihara games. You still have a hunger meter though, and if it runs out your health depletes. Luckily, you can't die of hunger here, otherwise some time trials would be impossible. But of course, with 1hp anything you touch will end the run, so be careful~ For those finding it too hard, a secondary character can be unlocked that has a super jump that lets you briefly fly. The time trial and challenge leaderboards are separate as well. There is a special "challenge mode". Now this is where it gets serious. Some of these maps are up there with the toughest the series has to offer, so if you think the normal levels are too easy...good luck. My only gripe with the challenge mode is that one of the levels may actually be impossible to clear using Umihara afaik. The level is submerged and there's a certain spot where the duration required to be underwater is far beyond the air you have, even going as fast as possible. Update: I beat it, you just have to plan ahead well and be really fast ^^. This challenge mode is a lot of fun, and will test even the more seasoned umihara players. One last thing, the game obviously has a very hefty price tag not seen often of niche indie games such as this. It's a lot, but often goes on 85% discount, which I can easily recommend it for. I really had a lot of fun with this entry to the series, and I hope this isn't the end for Kawase. It's sad that this game got so overlooked, mostly because of a rough English release and being pricey. (Sorry if this got a bit rambly, I just wrote what came to mind while on my phone)

This game is polarizing. The port isn't great, the controls doesn't match with my controller. The game was machine translated instead of using the console version. This version doesn't feature the character Curly, but it does feature Cotton instead. I personally really like the series and this entry, but it's definitely not worth the regular price. I got it on sale, and if you're interested you're better off doing the same too.

the boykisser cameos in this game as a major recurring character