Shing! is a beat ‘em up, hack, and slasher video game genre that was released on the 27th of August 2020. The game was created by game developer Mass Creation, and published by Mass Creation, NA Publishing IC, and WhisperGames. The game was originally available for the PlayStation 4 platform, but you are now able to also play it on the PlayStation 5. However, there might be some features that are only available on the PlayStation 4 version.
Shing! tells the story of a group of ninjas on a mission to save the world from an army of evil demons. The good news is instead of going through this adventure alone, you can also team with up to three of your friends in slicing and dicing the enemies. The game did take a fairly long time to complete, as there were some very annoying enemies that you had to surpass. Not to mention, the long and aggravating boss fights. Especially as I was playing on the hardest difficulty.
Shing! delivers a smooth, but also very nostalgic type of gameplay where you would see resemblances of iconic games like Streets of Rage, as you would be side-scrolling to the next part of the missions and the camera angle would be from the side view. This gameplay style would interest gamers who especially lived in the ’80s or ’90s, but will most likely intrigue the younger kids. However, a lot of the combat is repetitive. Therefore, this is a game that probably wouldn’t push some gamers into wanting to restart the campaign after completing the game.
I like how every character had their own fighting and combo style, which created some diversity in the game. This brought more excitement to not only the campaign but to the game overall. Plus, each character has their persona and cheesy, but also hilarious one-liners. A mixture of action and comedy would give some indication that this game was primarily aimed at early teenagers.
For combat, you get to choose to either perform attacks with the right analog stick or with the shaped buttons. I opted for the shaped buttons because I usually use those buttons in fighting games. Although during the campaign, I did experiment with the right analog stick at one point it was a lot more difficult than initially thought. Especially when trying to perform combos. Therefore, I went back to the shaped button layout.
Every time you engage in combat, you can either simply button bash or use a wide range of awesome combos. Your best bet is going with the latter to not only destroy enemies much quicker, but you would also unlock the best experiences of the game. You might struggle to perform certain combos at first. However, with some practice and patience, you probably wouldn’t have a hard time executing even the most difficult moves. You would need to dodge and block enemy hits.
It is also worth mentioning that the times you strike enemies, you will notice that under your health bar, you see a combo counter. This indeed motivated me to continue hitting them without stopping, as I tried to achieve as many hits as possible. Plus, another cool feature was whenever I finished off the last enemy in a segment, the game automatically went into slow-motion mode for a few seconds then proceeded on to the next battle.
It was very interesting how you can swap your characters at any time during the campaign, especially on the hardest difficulty. You would be very low on health with the character you are currently using and then you could swap that character for another that has full health. This was key in keeping the game flowing and to perform each of the character’s moves.
The graphics that were used for Shing! I was really enthused by it. A very cartoonish-styled look that was perfectly suitable to the game. A few times I felt as if I was playing a PlayStation 2 game, because of how the visuals looked but ironically had sharper detail to the objects. The designs of the maps were not too shabby either with their vibrant colors, stylistic buildings, and animations.
To round it up, although Shing! lacks a significant number of elements to deservedly receive critical acclaim, strangely I was still able to receive a decent level of enjoyment whilst playing the game with its nostalgic mechanics, very charismatic characters, and a somewhat interesting plot. To add to this, I felt that I would probably enjoy the game much more if I were to play with friends. Having said that, if you are thinking of buying this game, you would want to get at least one of your friends involved.
