Whoa, Zerodiv are absolutely on fire! Their latest Psikyo shoot’em up conversion, Tengai (aka: Sengoku Blade: Sengoku Ace Episode II) is brutally hard and oh so damn satisfying all rolled into one. If you are into superb mid-90s shmups, then you can never have enough shmups in your Switch line-up.
Tengai is a brilliant mix of horizontal shmup action (there is lots to shoot here which quenches the shmup thirst) with the flexibility to tweak difficulty levels, and trust us, you’ll be setting it to monkey mode in no time! Once you pick your character from a roster that consists of a Monk (Tengai) that shoots beads, a Ninja Warrior (Sho) that throws blades, a female Ninja (Junis) who uses her knives and shurikens, Katana that uses lasers, and the shrine maiden (Miko), who uses ofuda cards, then it is time to hit the skies over medieval Japan and dispense some justice. Each character of course has their own power-ups, which are pretty zany, from Tengai’s hawk, Sho’s mirrors, Junis’ mongoose, to Katana’s magical spear and Miko’s water spirit, these souped up powers should be used sparingly to clear the screen of all evil-doers.
The level design is linear till you come to level 5 where you face off against every previous mid-boss one after another. If you manage to get past these mid-bosses a branching path is presented prior to reaching the final boss for that epic final battle. By this stage you may be patting yourself on the back, but that would be premature as this end showdown is a timed affair, so if you do poorly, you will get your character’s ‘bad ending’ instead of a complete victory.
The gameplay also has a number of nuances like contacting enemies won’t cost you a life. Instead, your character’s firepower is downgraded, which makes progress tricky. So the object is to dodge and weave past all of the yellow/orange bullets that regularly fill the screen. Thankfully, Tengai doesn’t feel like a full-on bullet hell shooter, but there is certainly a lot going on all around the screen. If you think you will get some rest during play to enjoy the scenery, then think again! This game is full on – in a good way.
The sprite art in this game is damn gorgeous and the parallax scrolling is oh-so-ever-smooth, meaning that your eyes will thank you for the visual extravaganza! Complementing the visuals is the cool and distinctly oriental soundtrack which completes the atmosphere of the game.
We do sound like a broken record when it comes to games from Zerodiv, but this shoot’em up seriously deserves to be at the top of your Switch library – it’s shmuptastic!
image source: Tengai – Nintendo eShop
Disclaimer: Tengai was kindly provided by Zerodiv for this review.
