Thanks to Crimson Dusk and PLAYISIM for the review code!

I wrote last year about Echoes of the End and really enjoyed it despite it being so heavily inspired by the modern God of War games that the comparison defined the entire experience. Homura Hime is in a similar predicament, but it’s main inspiration is Nier Automata. Everything from the themes and structure of the story to the gameplay itself is clearly pulling from that Platinum Games masterpiece. The only difference is, for every part that this game falls short comparatively when it comes to new ideas and polish, it balances out in the ways it distinguishes itself from Yoko Taro’s magnum opus.

Combat is likely the main reason you’re here, and it was the main reason I was interested as well. I’m happy to report that…it’s fun! You can pretty easily go crazy on enemies with sick combos and abilities, and that flow is aided by a simple skill system. This system maps special attacks to certain face buttons, which means the discovery of finding a particularly powerful button combo chain is slightly lost. But ultimately, it keeps combat strategic without making it too complicated to keep in your head. Parries are the main distinguishing aspect from Nier, and it gives battles a Sekiro flavored edge. You can parry so many different enemy attacks and even environmental elements at times too, so you can avoid almost all damage if you just keep pressing that trigger. However, when you get swarmed, you can get stuck in long parry chains where you seem to never get a chance to strike back. But the parry is spammable, so its not to hard to wait until your have a window to pop off a skill or sword swipe, it can just sometimes take longer than you want. Overall the combat may not be peak, as I’d like just a bit more added depth and combos, but it’s hard to imagine a more perfect set of fundamentals.

There is a healthy amount of platforming in the game as well, and it is…fine. This is a Platinum-like first and foremost, but while even those games have some platforming at times, Homura Hime comes off as more intentionally designed to be a platformer as much as it is a slasher. Only problem is, the platforming is a bit stilted and simple due to there being no double jump and your dash being pretty short. The only thing that makes the platforming more engaging is that your parry turns into a locked-on teleport of sorts, so much of the time jumping and dashing it spent trying to get close enough to a jump pad to teleport to it rather than to land safely on a platform. It makes the rhythm of platforming play a bit like Legend of Kay back on the PS2, which used a Batman Arkham like zip-to mechanic to help you traverse long gaps in mid air. They don’t do too much else with this mechanic however, and you can see just how simple it, and platforming overall, is with the handful of timed platforming challenges in the game. Still, it only serves to spice up the moments outside combat arenas, and that it does well, but it is absolutely an aspect with much room to improve.

The visuals are maybe the first thing that caught your eye, but for me it wasn’t the thing that brought me in. I’m quickly getting over this kind of mindset, but anime aesthetics have traditionally either turned me off or just left me disinterested. But at this point, much of my favorite art has those aesthetics, including Nier Automata, so a look like this is more neutral to me these days. The more I played, the more I saw that this art style is actually very gorgeous. Character models pop and emote vividly, and you can especially see these animations shine in the game’s excellent boss battles. However, the art can’t hide the fact that many of the environments are pretty sparse. I don’t think it’s fair to expect a realistic amount of debris, clutter, and props in every scene, but too often did I find myself running into an invisible wall that made no effort to hide itself in the set dressing of the level. This is ultimately a nitpick, but when the game encourages your curiosity with collectible upgrades a-la the original God of War trilogy, it can be disappointing to sneak onto a platform or into a backroom only to find nothing to interact with. I’m not sure if this could be fixed with more guardrails, or more cleverly hidden ones, or if this game could use more interactables in more places, but it is one of the only aspects that show this game’s modest scale and budget when compared to it’s AAA inspirations.

But those bosses rival anything you’d find in games like those, as they consistently dazzle in new and fascinating ways every time. I love the parry system as is, but if you hyper-focus on timing them out like Sekiro, this game will never ask that of you. Deflect windows are generous and, like I said, the parry is spammable, so it may make some of the bosses feel a bit easier than you’d like. But I found the ease of the parry allowed me to better appreciate the spectacle of the duel, and good GOD is it impressive. Plus, what the fights loose in challenge due to ease of parries, they gain back by asking you to jump, dash and dodge all kinds of enemy attacks while also swapping between ranged and melee attacks on the fly. Every moment of combat is a blast, but the bosses in this game are a real treat.

The story is not something I wanna talk about too much due to spoilers. But it absolutely plays with some of the tropes found in Nier Automata and other Japanese action games, and some JRPGs, too. But there is a distantly feminist slant to the game thanks to every character, save maybe two of them, being women, or at least femme presenting. The themes of liberation, oppression, and corruption hit a lot harder when you have these women going through these events, because I couldn’t help but think about the parallels to real life oppressive systems that harm women today. Unlike modern times, the tone of Homura Hime, while sprinkled with despair and shocking devastation at times, remains hopeful at its core. To see that hope stay centered despite the dire circumstances gave me a nice, positive vision of how to live despite the dire circumstances that surround us all, at least us Americans, today. I didn’t expect to connect to Hime’s story, as I recognized the anime tropes early on and expected to cruise through a simple narrative of larger than life characters and stakes. But in the end, it really resonated with me in a way similar, though not at all on the same level, as Nier Automata.

As for how that narrative is structured, it is a bit awkward at the end. The final few missions/hours of the game deviated entirely from the structure I had gotten used to in the prior 6-8 hours, so it was a bit hard to know how much longer I had until the end. Plus, for a game that typically keeps you moving forward with great momentum, the final hours are entirely made up of content from earlier levels. It’s hard to say if felt lazy, as it is justified by the narrative and some elements are added or remixed. But it did make those final hours feel more like a new game plus run of the game we had played up to that point than actually fully new content. The actual narrative and combat climax is worth the retread, however, so I can’t hate it too much.

Homura Hime is not a perfect game, and it is not the modern classic that it’s inspiration, Nier Automata, is. It’s combat and platforming could be deeper. It’s environments could dazzle as much as it’s character design and animations. It’s narrative structure could try to more cleverly hide, or outright avoid, it’s recycling of content near the end. But when I found myself at the very end of the game, seeing the ultimate fates of all these characters that I didn’t even realize I had fallen in love with, I didn’t think about any of those flaws. All I cared about were these dozen or so women I managed to form a bond with, the satisfying *clash* sound of my blade deflections, and the new, better world I had help create with that blade. This is truly a game that grabbed me tight with it’s combat and never let go, but the narrative is the reason why it’ll linger in my mind for quite some time.