Shin Chuka Taisen (Nintendo Wii) Review

I should love Shin Chuka Taisen.

At face value, it seems that the game would have satisfied everything that I could have requested from a remake of the original Chuka Taisen/Cloud Master. But somewhere in the translation of bringing an updated version of the classic arcade game to the Nintendo Wii, certain design decisions have gone horribly awry and have left a bad taste in my mouth in regards to how I feel about the new title.

I commend Starfish for what they have attempted to do here. It is no easy task to take on a remake that most gamers who remember the title hold in a rather fond memory. However, to put it bluntly, Starfish has failed with the remake and even when viewed seperately outside of the nostalgic ties, has only succeeded in creating a mediocre shooter that seems more akin to a doujin fan-release rather than a full commercial project.

Is that too harsh? Maybe.

But I can't help but feel that the conscious development choices made with Shin Chuka Taisen are what has hurt the game the most.

So where did it all go wrong?

I probably need to talk real briefly about the original Chuka Taisen/Cloud Master games by Taito. After the original arcade release in 1988, Taito Corporation ported the game to the PC-Engine, MSX, NES, and Sega Master System. The game borrows heavily from the Journey to the West folklore, and features horizontal scrolling with patterned enemy waves reminscent of most horizontal shooters of the time. The game was relatively simple, even for its release, but the cartoon styled graphics, good sprites, and an insidious difficulty level meant that the game stood out among the lot of Gradius clones that were filling up arcades at the time.

Starfish locked onto the license about a year ago alongside the license for Kiki Kai Kai. Both games have apparently seen a ton of pressure from Taito's parent company Square Enix (which led to Kiki Kai Kai being cancelled), however, the details of the issues that arose between the development team and Taito/Square Enix are little more than speculation as to the cause.

Gamers who are familiar with the original game will find Shin Chuka Taisen instantly accessible. The level layouts, power up system, enemies, and bosses are all based on trying to keep the look and feel of the original intact. The game's backgrounds and sprites are a all reworked to take advantage of some of the 2D potential the Wii has to offer, but the system's capabilities seem to be grossly underused.


I couldn't help but trying to compare the sprites in Shin Chuka Taisen with Odin Sphere and Vanillaware's work when playing the game. This was probaly done at a disservice to Starfish, because even the bosses (which were where Starfish put most of the effort in their sprites) seemed amateur-esque after Vanillaware's PS2 efforts. Yes, they are two seperate genres and it is likely unfair to compare the two, but when the sprites in Shin Chuka Taisen look as though they have at most only 3-4 frames of animation, it really calls into question just how much care was put into making the game attractive to gamers unfamiliar with the Chuka Taisen name.

Overall though, the sprites are passable. If the game's issues ended simply with the slightly underdeveloped sprites and backgrounds I could overlook the issues. But it is just a smaller piece in a larger puzzle...

Before I rip into what really irks me about Shin Chuka Taisen, I do want to mention a few positives.

The game's music is well done. The soundtrack is borrowed heavily from the first game with fully realized remixes of a lot of the original tracks. The level design, while not as varied as I would want it to be, is a direct homage to the first game right down to the level paths and layouts. Whenever I went through the stages and was able to see the original 1988 levels redone with art from today, I couldn't help but feeling the tugs from my nostalgic side trying to tell me the game could be fun... in a way.

Further, though I won't all out praise the implementation of the Wii remote controls (which tilts the screen based on if you tilt the controller left or right), they weren't a detriment to the game and at least brought a mildly entertaining component. I only wish that Starfish would have taken the effort to design more gameplay sections that would've relied on the mechanic rather than it becoming a simple add on that is more of an afterthought than anything.

And this leaves only where the game seems to lose its focus.


Like it or not, the scrolling shooter genre is a niche genre even in Japan. Because of this, side scrolling shooters made to attract a wider audience have a tendency of falling into the trap of forgetting the core fanbase. I believe that this is the case of what happened with Shin Chuka Taisen.

In designing the game, Starfish has elected to add both a health and lives system to the mix. In the originial Chuka Taisen, it was one hit and you died, sending you back to the last checkpoint. Though I applaud the decision to remove the checkpoints in the new game, with the added health bar and lives system, any difficulty in the game was sapped. Even on the hardest difficulty levels I found the game to be lacking in any threat or challenge.

Anyone who is a fan of shooting games in general (which would be the people I would think that this game should've been marketed towards), is going to find the difficulty in Shin Chuka Taisen disappointing. This is a bit of a death note for a side scrolling shooter. Without a solid difficulty level, the game has nothing to really offer gamers for multiple playthroughs. Considering the difficulty of the original Chuka Taisen series, those playing through Shin Chuka Taisen for nostalgia (like myself) are going to find very little to hold onto. The scoring system is little more than shooting as many enemies as you can and there are no rewards for clearing the game aside from a happy little credit roll and a Game Over screen.

When it comes down to it, Shin Chuka Taisen does very little for furthering the genre's reach to a casual crowd and succeeds in ostracizing what should've been its primary audience. Though Starfish receives kudos for developing a new 2D game, their failures of understanding what they should've have done with the Chuka Taisen name puts a black mark on their efforts. I only hope that Kiki Kai World doesn't suffer the same fate as Shin Chuka Taisen.

Final Score
2/5

Quick Review
Shin Chuka Taisen feels like a fan-made project that does more of a disservice to the genre than rewards Chuka Taisen fans with a remake of a classic arcade shooter.

(Shin Chuka Taisen will be published stateside under the name "The Monkey King: The Legend Begins" by UFO Interactive)