Review – Bakeru (Nintendo Switch)

The peace of all of Japan is threatened by a hostile takeover by evil Oracle Saitaro using nefarious festival magic. Bakeru, a member of a local tanuki clan, heeds the call put forward by the tiny spirit Sun and reluctantly agrees to go fight back and make things right. Since we cannot risk innocents being harmed, Bakeru is armed with his enchanted taiko drum, which will deliver a proper wallop to evil spirits but not random bystanders. With forty-seven levels to explore across all of Japan, Bakeru will traverse land, sea, and sky to reset the rightful balance of order. Thankfully, Bakeru is not alone, and will receive the blessings of other folk legends in the form of Henge licenses: bestowments to let Bakeru transform into incarnations of fairy tale heroes! There’s no time to waste, and plenty to discover, in this enchanting tale of action, magic, and monsters.

Straight up, Bakeru has that all-important power to let me feel like a kid again. While I know Legend of the Mystic Ninja (also called Goemon) might not be in everyone’s wheelhouse, it really hits home as one of those cornerstone games for the SNES. A title that was equal parts action and exploration, Bakeru emulates a lot of the Goemon vibe perfectly by having an excellent blend of difficulty and power fantasy. Rather than be bogged down with a lot of details regarding reason or cause, you just accept the good guy/bad guy roles and move forward, which helps the momentum of this playful piece stay steady.

At each level, Bakeru will find tons of enemies to beat down with his drumsticks and, for the most part, the combat is optional. You need to discover three seals that must be broken to free the drum at the end of the stage, and some of the seals just sit out in the open, waiting for assault. Even when the combat is really prevalent, it’s a bloodless affair that feels more cartoonish than violent every single time. Enemies drop coins, energy to charge up your Henge license (each transformation uses a different rate of power consumption), and occasional food to help heal, with the food always being Japanese sweets and festival food (takoyaki, my love!). It’s got that Final Fight nonsense of just eating food off the ground to heal up, but it’s also a tanuki with a rockabilly hairstyle fighting evil drums, so let’s give the concept a pass.

Let me play you the song of my people. It’s about PAIN.

You’re going to be able to brute force your way through Bakeru if straightforward completion is your only goal. Yes, the enemies get gradually more difficult, and you’ll need to utilize and understand the new attacks that you learn. Yes, you’ll have to get better at being able to block, deflect, and dodge at the right times, especially if you want to look your best on the numerous boss battles that come. You’ll need to figure out the right timing for everyone’s different Henge transformations to get through the last few stages of the game because you never get a single mechanic that calls for attention for a wee bit of time and then fades into the background. 

The Henge mechanics help to keep the game fun and fresh as you move further along, slotting in some crazy transformations that all feel fluid within the game. Slowly unlocking along the game’s first half, Bakeru gives our titular hero a chance to emulate other well-known protagonists of Japan’s folklore scene. Whether you prefer the brute force of Kintaro or the frenetic energy of Urashima Taro, you always have different approaches that sometimes need to be done (you cannot find everything in the game without Issun’s mini transformation) and some that you just do because, hey, why the heck not? It’s an excellent implementation of something in a game that constantly lets you try something, but almost never demands you do it.

I mean, deflecting this projectile with perfect timing like a boss wasn’t demanded, but I did it anyway.

For example, there’s never a required number of enemies to eliminate from stage to stage, and, as a matter of concept, I made it through an entire area with only needing to knock out one enemy, and that’s because it was a seal for the giant drum at the end. You don’t want to fight, you don’t have to. But man is it fun to be able to dash in and swing your taiko sticks like a demon, knocking aside henchpeople and baddies left and right. The additional abilities let you flourish, spin, and slam enemies with aplomb that feels as cool as you look as you collect all those sweet, sweet coins that get dropped. After all, saving up enough lets you buy more hearts for your health meter, and you don’t need it, but doesn’t maxing out your health bar for no apparent reason feel so appealing? 

The main draw for me for each and every stage of Bakeru are the goodies and collectables that crop up. The collectables are all little pieces of love from each and every prefecture that you visit. Of the three, one will always be a pennant of sorts that celebrates the area with a bit of kanji and some local mascot characters as well. The other two are either related to the stage itself or the famous omiage (souvenirs), such as the mandarin oranges of Ehime or the lion dogs of Okinawa. These collectibles are inside giant gatcha capsules that need to be beaten open, are often hidden and sometimes guarded by good spawns of enemies.

I love this game so much that I won’t even make the obvious euphemism.

But far more important are the five golden trivia notes that you discover tucked away in each and every stage. These trivia pieces, for reasons that I cannot explain, were my driving force to ferret out in every stage. There was a rush to walk down a pathway and discover this little golden dude squatting there, ready to tell me about the number of kidneys a blue whale has (3000!) or why the wheelhouse of a boat is called a bridge. These trivia pieces are kept in a log that you can revisit as soon as you finish a stage to remember about skipjack tuna’s changing stripes and why that’s so damn important to me.

If you’re like me and you want and NEED to complete your collection, don’t worry about the first go-around: the warning about quitting a stage and losing your collected items only applies if you haven’t finished the stage yet. So, if you get all the way through and then need to double back because you missed something here or there, you can jump in, play till you find it, and then exit, the new souvenir or trivia note safely tucked away in your bag. Now THAT’S how you inspire replay value instead of forcing players to have to do the same runthrough all over again just because there was an errant rooster effigy that you didn’t see the first time through.

Players coming for the story of Bakeru will be pleased as much as you can expect in a title such as this. Good Feel has done an excellent job of crafting a solid storyline with a good setup, a solid protagonist, and some twists and reveals to keep the adventure moving along and justifying the traversal between the areas. The voice acting from Bakeru and cast et al. is charming and makes the engagement between stages when Bakeru talks to Sun, Momotaro, and anyone else who needs to share information. The tale hits all the great beats of a kid’s anime and is full of quick jokes, fourth-wall exposition, and, of all things, a flying tea kettle, because airships have no place in this game.

Let me race Setzer in this thing, I’m gonna smoke him.

The Nintendo Switch is now seven years old and was underpowered when it launched, and all incarnations have only upped some minor points, never giving players a “pro” edition. I mention this only because Bakeru looks and feels like a million dollars when playing on the console, docked, or handheld. It’s incredibly smooth, with short load times, wonderful camera positioning, and zero showing of slowdown or lag when there’s a lot of action on the screen. I was worried that, with all the fighting, dashing, and transforming that occurred, I would see cracks appear in the facade. Yet there are technical wizards over in Spike Chunsoft, because Bakeru plays like the Switch was designed around it.

You can love how games like Super Mario Bros. Wonder are crazy polished, and you expect that because Nintendo themselves made it. But when Bakeru runs in such a great state you can’t help but marvel at the technical prowess, and what it means to make a game that feels like that: a game of love and excitement.  There’s no aspect of Bakeru that doesn’t feel well thought out and tested before execution. From the cultivated soundtrack of traditional inspired music to the frankly outlandish levels where you end up doing racing or dogfighting, this isn’t just a homage to the classics, but a fully-fledged creation of a new entry into the must-plays. Being released on PC as well as Switch is the icing on the cake, making sure that everyone has a chance to dive into the world.

You might be wondering how I got myself into this situation. I am as well.

I’m hard-pressed to find fault with Bakeru, and my digging only brings more things that I love. The mask collecting is silly fun to add some visual flair without being any sort of impediment. The shoulder button designation makes for ideal combat dispensation and combo-riffic allocation. If I had to complain about anything, it’s that there are very minor moments when I wish I could move faster without needing to dash first, and it’s the same level of concern as saying that I wanted my flying unicorn to have teal wings instead of blue. This is absolutely my favorite title on the Switch this year, which is astounding given the quality of titles we’ve seen so far. If you have any interest in fun, classic combat, and collect-a-thons, you simply must get Bakeru and come drum up some joy for yourself.

Bakeru is available now on PC and Nintendo Switch.

Reviewed on Nintendo Switch.

A copy of Bakeru was provided by the publisher.

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