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Task Force Kampas Review

by | Jun 9, 2020 | Indie, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation, PS4, Xbox

Task Force Kampas from Publisher Eastasiasoft and Developer Casiopea Wave

Fairly short and straightforward SHMUP with good boss battles. A few missed opportunities that could’ve enhanced game play but still enjoyable for what it is.

A vertical shoot em up

Task Force Kampus is a vertical shmup. There are 5 different pilots or characters to choose from, each with their own bonuses. 2 of the 5 pilots are unlockable characters. You’ll need to complete the game for one of them and get enough coco collectibles (more about these later) to unlock the other one. The pilots all have their own individual and interesting looks but you only see the pilot when selecting it at the beginning and they all fly the same ship just in different colors. While the different options for pilots and their bonuses are great it seems like they missed an opportunity to add additional layers and options to the game by not allowing you to choose your ship or giving the ships any stat differences themselves.  

The screen has been split into 3 equal parts with the gameplay in the middle part and the sides left completely blank. Both Task Force Kampas and Red Death (previously reviewed HERE) are from the same Publisher Eastasiasoft. Both games seem to waste a lot of screen real estate but this may be a side effect of the need to limit the width of the play area in a shmup.

The game has an interesting mechanic that gives you hp regeneration for your ship if you can hold off on firing or taking damage for a set amount of time. It appears that hp regen delay is different for each of the pilots. This stat would be nice to know when choosing your pilot.

There are 3 bosses you will fight while working your way through the game. The boss battles are enjoyable and they appear to each have their own theme songs that play while fighting them (some of the songs are better than others). Each of the bosses has a movement and attack pattern that can be figured out pretty easily. Once you catch onto the pattern you can see where to position yourself on screen to avoid taking damage so you can hang out there and heal up. If you’re able to figure out the pattern the game is pretty short and can be completed in about 10 minutes depending on player skill. 

Meteors and enemies have a chance to drop the in-game collectible, Coco, when destroyed. A coco is a golden dinosaur. These collectibles add to your score and if you collect enough of them you will be rewarded with a flying coco wearing a helmet that is tethered to your ship who will attack enemies. These are also what you need to collect enough of to unlock one of the pilots as a playable selection.

There is a High Score leaderboard present in the game and it does have stats showing how many wins, deaths, and most cocos collected. Another missed opportunity here, the leaderboard is local only and only shows the top 3. We are glad they included a leaderboard so we can see our stats but would have loved to see it as an online leaderboard to be able to compare scores with friends and globally. 

Task Force Kampas is available on Xbox One, PS4, PS Vita and Nintendo Switch. A digital copy of this game was provided to SimpleGameReviews for the purposes of reviewing the game.

Red Death Review

by | Apr 8, 2020 | Nintendo Switch, PS4, Xbox

Red Death from Publisher Eastasiasoft and Developer Panda Indie Studio

Classic retro feeling shmup.

A Retro shoot’em up 

You are the pilot of a small ship called Red 001 who is protecting the earth from invading aliens and an Egyptian god.

The game mostly follows the classic old school shoot ’em up formula. It has minimal story, getting hit once results in insta-death, and the game employs basic control mechanics for movement and action.

While playing you will be controlling your ship the whole time shooting enemies and flying through obstacles. Killing enemies will drop extra lives, weapons, and stars to power the overload meter. Once the overload meter is full you are able to use a special attack which does a massive amount of damage and will kill any of the bosses within seconds. It is a little OP but is needed to defeat the later bosses. Keep in mind if you get hit you lose everything. Not only do you lose a life, your weapon reverts to the starting weapons, and the overload meter starts over.

The game has an interesting choice for artstyle and display. It has a 4-tone color palette with pixel art graphics and splits the screen into 3 equal parts. On the left side you see your character and your score. The middle area displays the vertically-scrolling gameplay and the right side shows your remaining lives and the Overload meter. We feel that the choice for screen real estate would have been better if the gameplay area were larger and the other 2 sides were  half their current size. 

The gameplay can become challenging fast. The enemies will spawn in the same locations each time which helps you to learn the patterns and destroy the enemies shortly after they spawn on screen. The really challenging part comes from the sheer number of projectiles you have to avoid while trying to find a path that lets you actually hit the enemy. There is no “continue” option so once you run out of lives it’s game over and you have to start over. During the later levels you really get punished when you die as losing your weapons and overload meter might end your run. Without a full overload meter it’s near impossible to beat the bosses.

The game is pretty short with only 4 levels but will take a lot of patience, skill and luck to complete. Once you complete the game you are able to unlock the Arcade Mode which has randomized challenges.

Red Death is available on Xbox One, PS4 and Nintendo Switch. A digital copy of this game was provided to SimpleGameReviews for the purposes of reviewing the game.