Super Shadow Break : Showdown! NINJA VS The Three KAIJUs

Great game! The concept is simple but quite potent : Arkanoid meets Ninja Gaiden. The first game mode allows you to play on normal or hard difficulty and start from any level within a given chapter so it also serves as a training mode. To me, the main game mode is of course the arcade mode, where you're locked in hard difficulty and are not allowed to continue if you game over! 1CC or nothing! You can also unlock the original doujin version. This version of the game is shorter and faster. Highly recommended! The game is not perfect and suffers from the Arkanoid side of things, as you might sometimes get bored waiting for the ball to come down. But it's quite rare and not a deal breaker.

This was a pleasant surprise! When I first heard of this I was initially drawn in by its quirky presentation. I already knew I was gonna enjoy it on that basis, but was perhaps not expecting to see such well-done gameplay beyond that. Pairing the Arkanoid style concept with ninjas makes for some interesting additions to the formula. Especially when you get to the harder difficulty and the enemy combat truly steps it up. The boss fights were enjoyable too. I was impressed by how balanced it felt throughout. I played on normal difficulty with one character, cleared hard with the other. They both have a Special Ninjutsu but I ended up hardly using that. There's some other modes to go for that can be unlocked; I haven't fully checked them out yet.