Black Bird
PC, Switch
This is Onion Games’ most normal game to date, though we suppose everything’s relative. Black Bird is bonkers, certainly. But unlike its forebears
Dandy Dungeon and Million Onion Hotel, it’s quite happy working within the confines of its chosen genre, rather than madly subverting them. At its heart is a horizontally scrolling shooter whose greatest surprise comes not from the sort of stylistic non-sequitur that has become Yoshiro Kimura’s hallmark. Rather, it is in how content it appears to be to stick to a formula.
Black Bird’s central inspiration is the 1980s Sega shooter Fantasy Zone. You can turn your ship around, flying and firing left or right, and stages wrap around on themselves, meaning there’s no such thing as running away, merely running towards another set of problems. Each stage is full of sporadically spawning waves of enemies, and five control towers; once the latter are destroyed, a boss battle begins. Do this four times and the credits roll, though naturally this is only the start.
Which is just as well, really, as what first appears to be the entirety of Black Bird is a slender package indeed, however refreshing it may be in this era of 100-hour epics to see the credits roll on a review game in 20 minutes. Your first clear unlocks True Mode, where enemies are faster, more accurate and greater in number. There are secret characters to find, multiple endings to discover, and boss battles are tougher, their existing attack phases complicated and extra ones added.
It’s tough stuff, all of a sudden, and made especially so by a meagre health bar and no continue system. Your health, however, can be topped up and even extended using power-ups found in jars that are hidden around the levels, that switch between health, speed-ups and extra smart bombs when you shoot them.
At first, when survivability is your main concern, you’ll likely opt for health pick-ups when you smash open a jar. Indeed, this is important, since the titular avian grows in size along with health. But you’ll also want to prioritise bombs. The climactic explosion produces a shower of green gems, which are the game’s most vital resource, dropped by every enemy you kill. Collect enough of these, and your rate of fire increases, your bullets getting larger in tandem.
And it is here the game’s real genius reveals itself. Gems get smaller the longer you leave them in play, so to maximise their value, and increase your power level efficiently, you need to pick them up as soon as they appear. That mandates an aggressive style of play that, in True Mode at least, is risky in the extreme. This may be Onion Games’ most conventional release to date, but still Kimura finds a way to bend the rules.