Umihara Kawase games have been in existence since the SNES days, although it’s only been within the last decade that the games have been easily available outside of Japan. In more recent years Umihara Kawase Fresh series has already appeared on the Switch, with the main character appearing in other crossover games. BaZooka brings characters from the various Umihara Kawase franchises along with some crossover characters from the developers back catalogue. If you aren’t already familiar with the series then this game won’t help clear that up. Besides a little character info there’s nothing for newcomers. In the game's defence it hardly matters, chances are you’re here as a Umihara Kawase fan.

Instead of the usual 2D platforming and grappling hook traversal Umihara Kawase you may be familiar with, you’re now confined to a screen or arena. There is still the signature fishing lure grappling hook mechanic, but not in the way you’d hope for. Once you arrive into an arena, it’s up to you to take out the enemies and collect enough coins to progress. To do this you need to use the series trademark lure to hook onto an enemy or item and reel it in. Once they’re reeled in you load them into your BaZooka, becoming vital ammunition to take out the stronger creatures or just to clear more of them. It’s not just creatures you can find yourself up against, being an arena fighter you can also challenge the other selectable characters.

Besides the different ways to take out the enemy, you can also chain BaZooka shots. When you hit several enemies it creates a chain bomb that you can reel in and fire. This bomb can be used to continue the chain, creating another chain bomb. It is a decent idea, especially in a score based game, but the mechanic needs it to be worth using. In BaZooka it never feels like score really matters, there’s no glory in winning in this game.

You have just over 20 characters to choose from, some from previous Umihara Kawase games, a dog, a youtuber and a series of other cameos from Success Corp games. While each character is visually distinctive enough, a lot of their additional attacks overlap. Some also just have more useful and powerful attacks, which can easily lead to competitive matches being unbalanced. The rest of the game might be feeling flat, but it’s hard to fault how many characters they’ve pulled together. 

The Challenge Mode is made up of 40 levels, with the goal being to collect enough coins to progress to the next stage. The coins appear as you destroy enemies, outside of the few boss battle levels. The levels do get more difficult over time, with different obstacles and hazards and harder to kill enemies. It never really gets too challenging, the difficulty comes from enemies taking more damage or spawning higher numbers. Some enemies can be reeled in, some need to be jumped on, and some need to be hit by the bazooka or a special move. While the levels keep a decent pace, the boss battles break the flow and are generally unpleasant. Not helping is the absurdly long knockback animation you have to endure should you get hit. In another Umihara Kawase game it might fly, but not here. When there are enemies regularly spawning into the arena it’s too easy to get grazed or trapped by a group of enemies teleporting in. 

You don’t have to take on these levels alone, you and up to three other friends can get in on this party game action. You can do this together, in teams or against each other, depending on how much you want to yell at each other. When playing the levels solo it does feel like the game is really meant to be played as a group, yet it will be a hard sell to get your friends to sit down for a few rounds of BaZooka. 

Battle Mode is for when you want to take on other players, either on a shared screen or online. Now to begin with, I didn’t have much luck with the online mode. Ranked matches left me sitting in a lobby for way too long. Casual matches as a fluke actually found people once, but it was still a long wait. The casual matches worked alright, although it isn’t as fun not being able to communicate with the other randoms to even acknowledge it had been a fun round. This was after the game had launched, and even a week in there appeared to be no sign of life. This limits the game down to either playing with people who are in the same room as you or online with friends who also have the game. Which means you are most likely limited to the offline multiplayer. This severely limits the game, especially when the single player portion of the game is just passable. 

While there are a few issues with BaZooka, one of the more annoying was that some information is misleading. For example, early on there is a shelled creature that can only be dealt with by double jumping on them. What isn’t made clear is that you need to time your double jump so that the second jump is made jumping off of their shell. It’s something that I figured out quickly, but it really wasn’t clear enough so early on. There is how to play instructions that go over some of the finer details of the controls and game mechanics, but they should have been easier to find. You don’t have to have a big tutorial, but make the information easy to find please. 

Umihara Kawase BaZooka is going to be a hard sell for fans of the franchise, replacing the challenging platformer with a sparse arena arcade game. There is a surprising amount of characters to choose from, only it’s a shame it doesn’t count for much. If you’re looking for a more arcadey take on the series then you might find something to enjoy here, though it’s hard not to be disappointed that there isn’t much to the overall game. The challenge levels are average, while the online experience is nearly non-existent. I recommend approaching this game with caution, maybe waiting for a sale if you are really that curious. I wish I had something more positive to say about the game. It's not a really bad game, but it’s not a good one either.