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Review

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Huge playlist archive with games from 2018: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxOanVBhqd3shFv7eRVs8C6iYc1zJzeJ0
INTRODUCTION (From http://www.chibiakumas.com):
Chibiko didn't get any presents from Santa this year... in fact, in the last year she's been killed by God, banished from hell, and reincarnated as the enemy of all mankind -so it's pretty likely she will never get in his good books again!

Still, she can always do without that 'gotta-buy-it' plush doll, and the coal is always useful for burning 'leftovers'

What's a whole lot less welcome is the strange monsters that have been lurking around the mountains lately - and now they are infesting HER castle!

Join Chibiko in her unholy battle against the invasion of badly drawn, cliche and generally uninspired enemies, pummel your way through 4 levels of brainless firepower crazy action - and unleash hell on the 4 end level boss enemies!

REVIEW:
This game was originally an Amstrad CPC release from 2016, but the author Keith Sear has later updated the game, and also released a sequel for the CPC. Keith has now also released the game for other 8 bit computers, including the ZX Spectrum 128k.

You can choose to play as Chibiko or Bochan, or both can play at the same time in a 2-player game, if you want to play the game with a friend. Once you have selected player you are ready to go, and the game starts with you lying in your coffin trying to get some sleep after a long night massacring villagers and drinking their blood, as vampires do. You wake up to the noise of monsters invading your castle, and the battle begins.

The first thing you notice when the game begins is the good use of colors, the parallax scrolling background and the massive amount of enemy bullets. The bullets may seem overwhelming but you only lose energy if you are hit directly in the heart – the blue flashing dot in the middle of your body. It should be possible to set up this game to be playable for anyone, because you can adjust almost everything; Four types of difficulties, continues can be set between 10 and 250, and you can choose to start with 0-3 smart bombs. Special settings for 2-player game can also be changed.

The game has both horizontal and vertical scrolling levels, and with power ups to collect and boss fights, this gives the game a lot of variety. It is all about avoiding a lot of bullets and shooting enemies, but the game also tells a story with a good sense of humor!

The scrolling routine seems to be pretty much the same as in the Amstrad CPC game, but the bullets is much bigger and easier to see in the Spectrum version. The Spectrum version is also more colorful than the four color mode used in the CPC version, but there is some color clash and noticeable black boxes around the characters when they move on colored background.

The game can easily compete with some of the old shoot’em ups for the Spectrum, it plays and controls well, has a huge amount of stuff going on at the screen, there is intro, in game story sequences, outro and different AY soundtracks. This is a very good attempt of making a serious shoot’em up game for the Spectrum, but it suffers a bit of being an Amstrad port, because looking at old games like e.g R-Type, Zynaps and Lightforce shows that it is possible to make full color shoot’em ups for the Spectrum without color clash.

The Spectrum retro community is big and a lot of new games is being released, but the market isn’t exactly overflown with 2-player side scrolling shoot’em up games, so the Chibi Akumas games are more than welcome on the Spectrum scene!

Rating = 90%

Visit Keith’s website and download the game for free or order a boxed version: http://www.chibiakumas.com/

Subscribe to Keith’s youtube channel for learning to program Z80 assembly and keep yourself updated for new Chibi Akumas games: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8t99gp5IN-FTf5rGVaRevw