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PopSlinger is a tremendous game and one that may not be for everyone, but everyone who plays it will find something to love about it.  The ’80s/’90s retro look has been done a lot, but rarely done better than it is here due to how well it manages to blend keeping the detail level high while also using a VHS-style filter over everything. It controls well across multiple controller setups, although a regular d-pad still feels like the best overall control method despite a left stick option being available. It plays like a dream, looks gorgeous and its ’80s-infused new wave tunes are top-notch. Those who grew up in the ’80s or ’90s, or just have an affinity for that timeframe, will love the look and feel of PopSlinger as a whole.

PopSlinger is overflowing with personality. From it’s art style, which has a bit of a retro overlaw or the colorful cast, who might I add are all voiced. The music is full of headboppers too. If there’s one thing I’ll have living in the back of my head, it’s the music.

PopSlinger is a colorful and radtastic narrative-focused musical shooter inspired by 1980s and 1990s culture that is easy to play and enjoy. Its soundtrack is bubbly and charming, matching the game’s hand-drawn marker look. PopSlinger offers an arcade-style experience with short stages to take on, making it an easy one to play in short bursts or in one go. PopSlinger is out tomorrow on Nintendo Switch with a $14.99 asking price.

PopSlinger es una aventura entretenida y con mucha personalidad a la que la ausencia de elección en la dificultad le pasa factura de cara a aquellos jugadores más casuales. Si ese no es tu problema, disfrutarás plenamente de toda la originalidad que este juego ofrece.

Popslinger is an action shooter game that tries to marry a Rythm action game with a shooter, not all marriages work out it sucks but it’s true, if both parties are not willing to be equal then it will cause problems. PopSlinger wants you to kill a group of enemies of the same color and that gives you the chance to mix and match the streaks to get abilities like health, shields, and turrets. What actually happens is you play a very basic shooter that wants you to dodge enemies and shoot particular colors so you get the difficulty and skill. It’s not fun to play in any way, the aiming of shots is bad, the fact that every time you get hit you get momentarily stunned is frustrating. Level design is just going right and every few screens you do a pointless wave-based attack. You have two ways to play PopSlinger, do the mixing and matching of enemy kills and get basic abilities and frustrated with enemy spawns, or play it like a shooter and avoid the fancy mechanics and get bored with some of the most basic entry-level shooting. Overall I don’t quite get what PopSlinger was going for and it falls at so many obstacles that it never actually gets going.

PopSlinger is a vibrant musical shooter inspired by ‘90s anime where a girl must save the world from sinister invaders with soda-powered guns. Join Ria Carbon, a funky heroine on a stylish quest to save the world from sinister invaders from another dimension using soda-powered guns. Backing Ria up is former PopSlinger heroine, Gin! Experience the whimsical story of Ria and Gin as they fight against the “Corazones”, people whose hearts have been corrupted by the dark forces from the other dimension, all while grooving to a fully dynamic soundtrack that reacts to your in-game performance in real-time.

As much as Popslinger ticks all the boxes for me – great setup, banging soundtrack, beautiful aesthetics – it just isn’t fun. It turned from a game into a chore, one where I felt obligated to try and go further and see more to justify where I was. I think, with some gameplay tweaks, this could be a really successful game. As it stands, however, Popslinger just doesn’t hit the high notes and leaves the player feeling pretty flat.

Finally, what can I say? Well plenty, because it was a good game, just not that exciting or long-term entertaining. It’s missing a few things which could put it over the top. I feel it was a bit lacking in weapons, the use of our friend Gin, and even just the difficulty can be a bit much, especially with the final grading at the end. Maybe it’s me, cause I don’t mind games like these. However, it’s just something I wish could have added or changed just a little bit to make it stand out somewhat more and be even better than it is right now!

Overall, I ended up having fun playing PopSlinger. There were a lot of flaws, but since I was mastering the levels to earn a high score anyways, I learned how to avoid the enemies by memory and adapted to overcome the lack of adequate telegraphs. Still, it was frustrating to need to skip so much dialogue every time I wanted to revisit a stage. Plus, the small field of view lost me several promising runs. Though I had fun, Popslinger is not a game I am itching to come back to.

But I do think that the game needs more improvements and a better story. I’m not expecting a masterpiece of storytelling but I would at least like something that’s memorable. Like every time a new cut scene happened, I had forgotten what happened in the previous one. Besides that,  PopSlinger is a good game, but not a great one.

Y su aspecto jugable está lleno de lagunas. Al principio de la partida el juego entretiene y manejar a Ria no es complicado. Puede echarse en falta un mayor alcance en nuestros disparos y una mayor agilidad en los giros de dirección, pero PopSlinger entretiene y nos hace pasar un buen rato. Todo se queda atrás conforme se avanza. Lo tedioso que resulta cambiar de arma, lo poco intuitivo que es saber qué usar para eliminar las barreras de los «flanes» convierten tu victoria en un ejercicio de tesón y fortuna más que de habilidad. La primera parada del viaje llegó muy pronto. Allí se bajó PopSlinger. El resto del camino ya lo hemos descubierto en ese trayecto tan corto.

As much as we wanted to love PopSlinger -and we do, at least when it comes to the sound and visuals- the game just didn’t click with us when it came to its gameplay. Your mileage may vary if you’re a diehard run-and-gun enthusiast, but for the majority of potential players, the sheer tediousness of the core mechanics ruins what could’ve been a fantastic little game.

Unfortunately PopSlinger is a hard game to recommend to most gamers. If the developers can make a concerted effort to balance and streamline the camera and combat issues I pointed out, as well as helping the game provide clearer visual cues, I think this could be something special. As it is now, however, it’s just too much of a mess to recommend to anyone that isn’t willing to put a ton of effort into the experience. Hopefully Funky Can Creative learns from this game to make their next adventure one that lives up to the hype.

PopSlinger looks and sounds great. However, its the actual gameplay that’s the issue. More frustrating than fun, PopSlinger has the personality of a bottle of soda that’s been opened and unrefrigerated for over a weak. Sure, it tastes fine, but its flatness can be a big turnoff.

Fighting waves of boogers could have been fun if the mechanics were refined. The ugly and garish visuals with unappealing characters also might have been tolerable if the gameplay loop wasn’t so repetitive. With some rebalancing and checkpoints before bosses, Popslinger could have been a decent guilty pleasure.