CHINA INFERNO

I'm usually not into underwater, and not particularly fond of ryona games. But the quality of the artwork, music, and storytelling is way too good to pass up. Even with the higher than average price for a game, it is worth it.

The levels are a mix of fighting and puzzle solving, with a hint you can access by pushing the "q" button.

If you run out of time, you'll see her gasp for breath and die that way, but there are other ways to get game over. She can get blown up, shot, tentacle molested by a tentacle monster, or sometimes other monsters. It's not all just drowning (although I imagine she must run out of air when the tentacle monster gets her.)

The art just keeps amazing me. It's like I'm watching a well animated anime. The cut scenes integrate into the game play almost seamlessly.

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Im really happy that they translated much of the game in english.
Before the update it was not too hard to figure out how to play, but there are some tricks that are revealed with the Q-button for a stage of which some are absolutly not intuitive.

With the english update this game became one of my favorites.
But you should not expect a typical kind of game. Its more like a playable anime. The game parts vary much and each has diffrent kind of arcade game mechanic. Yet they does not fail to entertain, but the real reason for buying this game are the beautiful and seamlessly cutscenes. And those are impressive. First the cutscenes are well set and every action has one. For example when the protagonist leaves an area through a tube you get a well set animation where she can gasp for air.
Second and most impressive is the love for detail for the protagonist animations. Her whole movement feels real. How she reacts on events, enemies, running out of air or when she adjust her bikini. And many events have multible animations so you wont see the same animation over and over again.

The price is a bit higher but the amount of content and the lovely details are definitely worth its price.

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Argh.

To sum up "China Inferno" in a sentence: Very good animation; mediocre (at best) game.

Most of the game the player can push through, one way or another, with the help of a welcome "hint" screen. Though it does make it unnecessarily obscure in some places what one needs to do to progress (such as three segments where one has to defeat a certain number of monsters to be able to end the level, although aside from a counter there's little to lead the player this way and plenty of contrary evidence suggesting the player should be avoiding them entirely.)

Other segments, there's nothing to be done but fumble through on trial and error and memorization.

But I'm on what I believe to be the last level at this point, and it's just... every poor design choice made earlier in the game, coming back to haunt the player all at once.

Throughout the game, the player's time is limited by their air supply. Usually, this isn't a problem.

Now, on this stage, you need to collect and drop bombs on enemies to progress... And those bombs spawn at arbitrary, seemingly random intervals.

See the problem? More than once I've run out of air because I just wasn't provided enough bombs to do the job until it was too late.

Throughout the level, you're pursued by seeking missiles launched by enemies- and if any of those missiles (tracking you) hit your bombs (which you can only drop downward, with a slight spread just to make it even harder to aim them), they're as much as wasted.

And occasionally those enemies drift right up to the only area the bombs spawn from, leaving you defenseless and trying to dodge missiles at point-blank range.

While you're getting stuck on the scenery, immobilized by hits, and occasionally watch those missiles go through the limited cover.

And THEN- with no "save point"- you fight the level's REAL boss. Who often camps near the bomb spawn with a machine gun.

The animation really is pretty. I hope to see more in a better game.

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