Tiny Pixels Vol.1 - Ninpo Blast | PS5

Bikes, ninjas, and insectoid creatures are what make up this unique top-down shoot 'em up from EastAsiaSoft. Centered around a battle between nameless ninjas, and an army of alien insects and arachnids, 'Ninpo Blast' has the player shooting for that highscore to the tune of a mechanics system set to three buttons and a thumbstick. 

As you grind your way through the stages for gears needed to fully unlock the ninja's and hoverbike's full potential you'll face off against telegraphed lesser enemies, and a few different bosses whose placement, and appearance are tuned to randomly generated spawns. Making each playthrough different from the last, and unpredictable outside of the telegraphed enemy approach.

Starting off you begin the game as a ninja on a base hoverbike with three distinctly different attack options. This includes a shuriken, kunai, and katana attack. The shuriken acts as your alternate spread shot, and the kunai as your straightforward concentrated shot. Each of which can be upgraded with collected gears according to power, shots, and speed. Adding to their damage potential overall. Lastly the katana attack acts as the game's screen clearing bomb, and has a cooldown that requires shots fired to regenerate over time, after use. Like the two shot types the katana blast can be upgraded reducing the cooldown time.

As you progress stage by stage in top-down vertical fashion through a narrowed alleyway of mutant monstrosities you'll earn points per shot landed to the tune of a multiplier that increases up to X9 for each kill not missed or and each hit not taken after a kill. This multiplier enhances point value per enemy, and per landed shot. In making these kills you'll also find the occasional gear drop which is the game's currency. Flying into it will collect it, and like previously mentioned upgrades you can upgrade hoverbike magnetism to better collect any stray and falling gears.

Speaking of hoverbikes, they too can be unlocked for cosmetic sake, and can further be randomized switching up the bikes per run. These vehicles act as your ship, and the riding ninja as the ship's hurt box. Making navigation between enemies and bullet hell more doable. 

Other than the ninja upgrades, and hoverbikes you'll find gathered gears will also unlock new stage backgrounds of varying colors as well as new bosses, and more health among other things. Helping, and altering your playthrough in the process. Needless to say it is one bullet hell of a grind to unlock everything, and at the start a full playthrough is damn near impossible, if not impossible. 

Playthroughs in 'Ninpo Blast' are short lived segmented affairs with briefly bordered off boss fights at the end of each one. Repeating in randomized fashion on loop the longer you live. As you fly upward shooting your shot, and blasting your blast you will notice various arrow indicators flash on either side of the screen.

These flashing arrows not only telegraph or forecast an enemy's approach, but also let you know, indirectly, what type of enemy is approaching. Learning to read these predictive prompts is a way to avoid unnecessary damage, and preemptively strike before the screen can become too cluttered. In addition to that you'll find an enemy health bar and shield bar display on the right side of the playing field allowing for more precise enemy elimination. This carries over to the boss fights as well.

The Presentation ...

Ninpo Blast is a colorful shmup with detailed pixel art that enhances the ninja versus insectoid theme. It is all displayed on a vertically upward scrolling playing field narrowed into a wide lane that is surrounded by borders that display player and enemy information to aid in the gameplay approach. Things like health, and shields are shown for good measure. That, and score as well as the current multiplier status. Additionally there are unlockable background color palettes that when equipped will change the track of music.

Audibly the game is accented by a beat and rhythm heavy soundtrack that speeds up or mellows out according to chosen color palette. For what it is it is a complimentary track to the action, and adds to the frantic fast paced gameplay going on onscreen. 

The Verdict ...

If I were to be honest 'Ninpo Blast' fails in one huge way. A way which I've pointed out time and time again with this publisher's shumps. That is in regards to the grind required to get to a point where you actually stand a chance at completing the game. This game in that respect has a highly abusive artificial difficulty. Forcing the player to repeat grind for hours on end just to unlock everything needed to properly compete in the game's online leaderboards. 

This unfair grind should not be in any shmup. Locking access to a full run behind a grind/time paywall is not the ideal way to setup a challenge. Those efforts in design could have better been spent in adding different modes, feature variety, and power-up systems. It truly baffles my mind why some developers choose this approach. 

On top of all of that there seems to be an issue with the multiplier and score tally as it is not as consistent as it should be. Multipliers are seemingly dropped for not reason at times as well. It makes climbing the leaderboards a trying task that is unfair. There's that, and the inconsistent damage required to down an enemy. Seeing as all these problems exist I cannot recommend 'Ninpo Blast' unless you are a player who doesn't mind a tedious unfair grind. If you don't more power to you. The game is budget priced as per usual and won't break the bank. Plus it comes with some earnable PSN trophies for applied effort.