Shing!

Developer & Publisher: Mass Creation Release: August 28, 2020 Playtime as of writing: 1.5 hours Code provided

I received this code at the end of February and played the game for 30 minutes before putting it down. I think that says more about the game then I ever could. However I like to pretend I’m a professional some times so I have a duty to play the game to give a review.

I wrote that above sentence 2 weeks ago with the intent of finishing the game that day and writing my review. Since then I’ve played another hour. I just feel no motivation to play this game, and looking at the steam achievements I’m not the only one. Only 52% of the people that own this game beat the first level and 25% beat the second level so there is a 50% drop off between the first 2 levels.

I told Scott I would finish this review by Friday, it is now Saturday as I type this. I thought maybe giving myself a deadline would get me to play the game out of obligation but it didn’t. Is it unfair to the game to write a review after only an hour and a half played? Personally I don’t think it is. howlongtobeat says the average time to finish the game is 5.5 hours so I’ve played 27% of the game, there are 7 levels and I’ve beaten 2. Based on steam achievement stats that’s more of the game then most people that play it will see. Maybe the game gets better later but I will never know.

“So what even is Shing!?” I hear myself asking on your behalf. Shing! is a single/multiplayer 2.5D side scroller beat em up. You play as a ninja whose duty is to protect the starseed. The starseed is stolen by yokai so now you have to get it back. At the beginning of the level you choose between one of four ninjas. You have Tetsuo (sword boy), Aiko (twin sword girl), Aiko’s sister Bichiko (spear women), and Wilhelm the foreigner (axe man). If you’re playing single player you can swap between characters at any time essentially giving you four health bars. Each character plays the same, you have a light attack, heavy attack , and a kick. You can also aim your attacks as low, medium, or high. Some of the yokai drop orbs that give you added effects like lightning powers, dash bombs, or just healing you.

Thinking about it 2.5D might not actually be the best way to describe it. There are 2 types of games that are described as 2.5D you have the games with the 3D characters and worlds on a 2D plane where you can only move left or right (Kirby 64) and 2D characters on a 3D plane where you can also move up and down (Castle Crashers). This game however is 3D characters on a 3D plane so it’s more 2.5D in the spiritual sense then the conceptual sense.

The graphics look mediocre. If you told me these characters were from some cheap mobile game I’d believe you. But they’re not, the game isn’t on mobile, it’s on PC, Switch, and Xbox Series X/S.

The best thing I can say about this game is that it is functional. you press the button and your character does the thing. On the other hand the game doesn’t follow established flow structure, In the first level you fight ogres that have a lot of health and take more time then they should to kill and there are also little goblins that have just as much health as the ogres. In the second level you eventually come across some kappas that have less health and are easier to take down. Putting the ogres out first and giving them so much health just makes the game feel tedious and introducing the kappas later gives you the idea of what could have been. Instead of putting the ogres first they should of had 1 ogre and some goblins and had the goblins have as much health as the kappas making them quicker to kill. Based on my recording it took 10 seconds to kill the first enemy.

The health issue also makes the first boss fight frustrating in the bad way. The first boss is invincible and has goblins running around. The boss will eat the red goblins to regen health but if it eats the blue goblins it will throw up and lose it’s invincibility. You need to use your block to point a laser into it’s eyes so it blindly stumbles around and grabs a blue goblin to eat. So the best strategy is to kill the red goblins so it only has blue goblins but because the goblins have so much health you also have to watch out that the blue goblins don’t Blanka spin dash you. 6 minutes to kill the first boss.

Bottom line, this game isn’t worth it. If you need a side scrolling beat em up about ninjas, I hear good things about TMNT Shredder’s Revenge, or you could get The Cowabunga Collection and play Turtles In Time.

Or you can play Marvel’s Midnight Suns because since my review they released the Venom and Morbius DLC so now you can Morb all you want. I put off playing them until I finished this so I can’t tell you if it’s good or not but based on how I felt about Midnight Suns as a whole I’m going to guess that they’re good.

Anthony

Anthony spends most of his time thinking about games. When not playing games, writing about games, or thinking about games he can be found hunting pokemon in the wilds of downtown Clermont.If you like the words I write, maybe consider supporting me on Patreon?