Homura Hime

Back when I previewed Homura Hime I felt I was playing something a bit special. The wonderful anime aesthetic, charming characters and immediate combat mechanics, coupled with the bullet-hell bosses felt fresh and exciting. I dared to dream the game would live up to its promise - and you know what? It did.

For those who missed the demo impressions article, Homaru Hime is an exorcist tasked with ridding the world of evil spirits.  While demons and humans coexist in this world, the intensely regretful souls can become corrupted and create fearsome Archdemons which must be slain. Together with her partner Ann, Hime investigates mysterious incidents and finds herself facing five archdemon girls who left the world in tragic circumstances. But is all as it appears?

The setting of this game is pure magic. Hime and Ann make a terrific pairing, bouncing off each other as the narrative progresses. Hime's determination and sense of justice makes her a fearsome protagonist that's an utter joy to play. But it's the Archdemon girls that steal the show and got me utterly invested. The tragedy in their lives has shaped them into fearsome monsters, but you can't help but feel for them once defeated - once executed, you see the memories of their pasts and it's genuinely moving as you can see just how cruel and tortured their lives were before corruption overtook them. As much as I enjoyed each boss fight, I was getting pretty depressed at having to stand over what are essentially terrified victims and then watch Hime run them through without mercy.

Thankfully the narrative has a few twists and turns, but I'll leave those for you to discover.

While all the bosses are wonderful, Ling Ling is absolutely my favourite. She's so timid I just want to give her a hug.

Taking place in a 3D environment across multiple vistas, the game is a highly atmospheric and hugely enjoyable hack and slash adventure that rivals the established giants of thee genre like Bayonetta and Devil May Cry. Whisper it, but I think Homura Hime is actually better in a lot of respects - certainly I love the anime style here which does much to elevate it emotionally, but Hime's combat abilities are immense fun to use. Even battling monsters across stages is fun, while exploring brings plenty of hidden rewards too - yes, the levels are fairly linear, but there are secrets to find and currency to harvest. The most useful treasures include Life and Blessed Crystals that increase health and Blessed Shot capacity, both of which are very handy. You'll also find the merchant Kushinada who keeps healthy stocks of useful items and provides extra amusement via a minigame that requires you to retrieve chibi wandering heads. Yes, you read that correctly.

But it's the combat that sings here - Hime's attacks have weight and momentum, making combos feel impactful. You're able to buy new attacks as the game progresses allowing you to shape Hime's combat abilities to suit your preferences, lending the game a feeling of customisation unique to each player. The light and heavy attack inputs are simple to learn and easy to deploy, so the feeling of mastery is both earned and achievable, allowing you to approach each fight with an element of strategy as opposed to mindless button-mashing. Ranged attacks take the form of Blessed Shots which are powered by a gauge that refills over time - this prevents spamming but, thanks to the range of options you'll unlock, provide many opportunities to mix and match your weaponry. Your ranged attack style can be switched mid-combat too, so it's worth learning which combination has the best effect. 

The game's effects can be downright cinematic at times

Your special attacks are charged through battle, building as your standard attacks land and allowing you to unload devastation barrages onto enemies. Because these reward aggression, the cycle of raining down attacks and then unleashing a special becomes immensely gratifying, especially when you can repeat the form multiple times. 

Parrying attacks is also possible and perhaps a little overpowered. The game isn't terribly strict on the time you have to initiate a parry making it perhaps a bit too easy to get overly reliant on them. The speed at which you can parry is in line with the general harried speed of combat, but it slightly takes away from alternative attack options. It is, however, vital in latter stages because these archdemon girls can be a bit on the tough side to put it mildly.

I love the bosses in this game, they're wonderfully varied and bloody huge!

Speaking of, the Archdemon girls are absolutely spectacular. Some are sodding huge, others just very clever, but they're all hard as nails. The integration of the bullet-hell attacks are seamless, requiring you to make use of that parry system to crack the shield before you can dish out some melee damage and drain their life-force. No matter how many times I died, I never felt frustrated, chiefly because the battles are so much fun. 

In terms of performance, the game is solid on Steam Deck, with no issues on the framerate even when the screen gets very busy. The glitches of the demo are gone, and while the camera occasionally seemed a little lost, it was rare and didn't cause problems - at least it's stopped freezing mid-combat! The game has been patched for a few minor bugs so it's good to see some ongoing responsive support. The news about a Switch 2 port came out last week, which gives me hope for a physical release. And an artbook. And all the things.

I review a lot of indie games on this site, one of the joys of which is finding creative new games that don't get as much exposure as they deserve - Silly Polly Beast and Majogami were both incredibly beautiful games with distinctive art-styles and excellent gameplay, but just occasionally you get a game that takes on established and popular genres on their own turf.

Homura Hime absolutely crushes it.