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Sushi Striker: The Way of Sushido (Switch) Review


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1976285410_SushiStrikerboxart.png.e9cf3041f05a2b0a21663aeef761055b.pngOne part Pokémon, one part color matching game, and one part making you hungry for sushi, Sushi Striker: The Way of Sushido is another oddball title from Nintendo that builds an addictive game around a relatively simple gameplay hook. Matching plates of sushi is a bizarre way of fighting but for puzzle fans on the Switch it's a great way to scratch an itch for fast-paced puzzle gameplay.
 
In a world where wars are fought over and with sushi, one young boy (or girl) has been orphaned by the most recent great sushi war. Growing up in a poor orphanage, the child had never tasted sushi, until a strange traveler reveals the secrets of sushi combat. Now, in an effort to share sushi with everyone and stop the evil Empire from controlling the world's supply of sushi, the child becomes a sushi striker to master the art of sushi snacking. It's an incredibly silly premise for a story and thankfully the game doesn't take itself too seriously. Most of the game plays out like a cheesy Saturday morning cartoon, complete with goofy side characters and predictable anime twists. It's a bit of a missed opportunity that the game relies more on the absurdity of its premise than in actually building an original, unique story, though. In many ways Sushi Striker is a parody of Saturday morning cartoons, but without any other clever twist or commentary on the format it just becomes an average Saturday morning cartoon itself.
 
In essence, Sushi Striker combines the creature collecting mechanics of Pokémon with color matching games like Panel de Pon or Bejeweled. In battle, you match the colors of sushi plates by dragging the cursor—or your finger—in order to build up a stack, then fling the stack at your opponent to damage them (stacks can be manually or automatically thrown). The sushi plates are moving on opposing conveyor belts, so you have to be quick and a little dexterous to build up a large stack since you only have a few seconds to create the chain. It's a solid, simple baseline for the game that becomes increasingly chaotic and engaging when you're in the heat of battle, trying to build up a good string of attacks before your opponent can do the same.
 
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The creature collecting aspect comes in the form of sushi sprites, who influence what sushi is available on your side of the battlefield (different color plates do different damage) and each sprite has a unique ability that can be activated in battle. For example, the first sprite you connect with changes every plate on the screen to the same color, allowing you to easily build a huge stack. There are a few dozen sushi sprites in the game and although their appearances feel like knock-off Pokémon—they even evolve upon reaching a certain level—the different abilities are well thought out and provide for plenty of different strategies. You can bring up to three sprites into battle so you can get creative with how your sprite abilities play off of one another. You might want a balance of offensive and defensive skills, or you might take three offensive types so you can strike hard and fast. It's great to see some variety in a genre that is otherwise kind of built upon doing the same thing over and over.
 
Sushi Striker also features some RPG mechanics which aren't quite as valuable to the core gameplay. Both your character and your sprites gain experience and level up, affecting damage and maximum health, but it kind of just feels like a system made for grinding. Since you generally want to have as strong of a team as possible at all times this pushes you into using the same sprites over and over, which isn't great for experimentation. Of course, you can just replay earlier levels to grind some experience points, but that process is slow and makes the game feel repetitive. In fact, the single-player story already feels too long and repetitive as is, so forcing the player to grind even more just to try out other viable strategies makes the whole game a little exhausting. In addition, gaining new sprites is a semi-random system. After battle there's a chance you might get a new sprite, but there's no indication of what that chance might be. It seems to be tied to having a higher score but there's no guarantee of it, so you really have to just trust to luck. As entertaining as the battle system might be, a lot of the game feels like filler.
 
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Sushi Striker also features local and online multiplayer battles—a natural fit given the head-to-head nature of the puzzle mechanics. Like most multiplayer games fighting a human opponent is much more challenging and satisfying, and Sushi Striker forces both players' sprites to be at the same level so it really is a test of skill rather than who has the higher level sprites. The online community isn't super active but thanks to local multiplayer you can simply share a Joy-Con with a friend for some multiplayer action.
 
Even though the controls are decent on the Switch it's clear that the game was built for the 3DS's touch screen. Playing with the control stick and buttons is a bit clunky—it doesn't have the speed or precision that the gameplay clearly demands. You can still play decently with a controller but it'll always feel like you're at a disadvantage. Thankfully, the Switch also lets you use the touch screen while undocked. You may lose the benefit of playing on the big screen but using your finger makes a world of difference for quickly and accurately chaining plates. It still doesn't feel ideal—your finger still isn't as perfectly accurate as a stylus—but as far as the Switch version is concerned it's the way to play.
 
Everything in the game's presentation screams Saturday morning cartoon, in both good and bad ways. Some of the character design and animation feels kind of cheap at times, but it's undeniably colorful and eye-catching, even if minor characters look laughably cookie-cutter. The music isn't bad either—certainly energetic enough for a round of action-puzzle gameplay—and the voice acting is more or less in the same camp as the art design: it's exaggerated and over-the-top at times, in both charming and awkward ways.
 
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Just getting through the story lasts a good fifteen hours or so, and if you get hooked on the puzzle gameplay you can expect plenty of replay value. There are optional stages in the single-player adventure, plus high score ranks, plus stars you can earn based on specific challenges such as finishing the level with 40% or more health left. And, of course, there's multiplayer to give the game nigh infinite replay value. Even though the game can feel like a grind at times, if you enjoy the grind you'll find plenty of gameplay to enjoy here.
 
Sushi Striker: The Way of Sushido is a charming, bizarre little twist on both action-puzzle games and Saturday morning cartoons. The gameplay is satisfyingly engaging, even if the single-player adventure turns into a grind at times, and the promise of local and online multiplayer will keep addicted sushi strikers well entertained. Although the controls never quite feel perfect on the Switch, Sushi Striker is a great way for puzzle fans to kill a bit of time.
 
Rating: 7 out of 10 Sushi
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Perhaps it's just me but this game always struck me as seeming more at home on smartphones than on actual consoles.  Perhaps the gameplay is better than the game's visual design, but the art style looks like something out of the freemium app store.  While I'm always open to new ideas and new IPs, I can't say I'm terribly impressed by this attempt.

Edited by The Ultimate Mario Fan
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I don't play a lot of mobile games but it seems to me like there's a lot more depth and sheer amount of content in Sushi Striker than in a typical mobile game. The graphics do look pretty cheap at times, though. It kind of suits the game's goofy story/concept but there are plenty of character designs that basically look like a rough first draft rather than a polished, finished design.

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