Kikumaru's Beach Adventure

Intro

"Kikimaru's Beach Adventure" was developed by Dyhalto and Arcmagik using Sim RPG Maker 95. An engine that hasn't received that much apparent love over the years since I can only think of a few games on this site that were even made with this engine. And a decent chunk of those are absolutely horrifyingly bad such as "Tactics Blade: Episode One". On the other hand, my favorite game of all time is "Disgaea: Hour of Darkness" for the PS2. So I have a soft spot for turn-based strategy games and this engine is ideal for making Fire Emblem type games. In fact, one of the developers has used this engine to make such games in the past.

Oddly enough I had considered reviewing the original version of this game since I do have some past notes floating around my room about the original build, but these notes are out of date since the game was modified a tad in response to a comment I posted back in January of 2020. As such I felt the need to go back and play through this game and it's four battles a second time to see if these changes would modify my opinion. And it definitely did since this game's difficulty has dropped quite a bit. So much so that the game's difficulty is a lot more in line with the comedic nature of this event game that was released under the summer theme for Seasons of RMN III

Story

You play as a group of siblings who've decided to honor a dead man's request by taking a hedgehog for a walk on a nearby beach. A walk that will be filled with peril since you'll need to overcome hordes of mercenaries under the employ of a demonic summoner that hates hedgehogs with the burning passion of a million Foreman's grills. So if you want to honor your promise you'll need to showcase why your group is more worthy of the title "of the red sand" than Sasori from Naruto. Since there are a lot of mercenaries and demonic gorillas to strike down in this game comprised of only four battles.

Comedy

Comedy wise the game relies a lot on breaking the 4th wall with the characters providing commentary on certain aspects of the game.



Outside of the constant fourth wall breaking the game also deploys a bunch of really bad jokes on purpose. The kind of bad joke that is known in many circles as a dad joke.



Gameplay

Combat wise the game relies on the default system that comes with Sim RPG Maker 95. As such this game features a pretty basic turn-based combat system. Albeit each of the three characters has a clearly defined role with Ax being a hard hitting meat shield, Kikumaru being a hard to hit unit that can land multiple hits, and Koto a healer that loves torturing/killing his enemies with lightning.



So much so that I wonder if Koto is actually a Lord of the Sith and Darth Sidious's secret apprentice. After all, Koto's ability to wipe out groups with bouts of force storm is not to be underestimated. Albeit in the original release of this game the lack of mp recovery items effectively made Koto a lot less useful. In the newest build you can much more readily spam lightning on large groups of enemies. Though you'll still want to be a bit conservative since you only get three magic jewels that restore 10 MP a piece.

The game is also a bit more generous with healing items, but the ability to consume magic jewels means you have a lot more MP available for healing in certain battles. So the inclusion of additional healing potions isn't as noticeable. At least if you take your time and work through the game's various groups of enemies in a piecemeal fashion. After all, you can be taken down rather quickly if you let yourself get surrounded on all sides by enemies.

Graphics

Graphically and sound wise the game is alright. Though I'm pretty sure a few of the graphical resources deployed in this game are custom. Though if they are original creations or lifted from a resource pack online is unclear since this game doesn't include an ending credit sequence.

Minor Issues



The main character's name is spelled incorrectly on the game's title card.

Conclusion

If your looking for a relatively casual strategy game with character's that like to break the 4th wall than "Kikumaru's Beach Adventure" is worth a look. And if your a fan of strategy games you can probably still get a little fun out of this game even if it is pretty basic. After all, this game only takes about 60 minutes or so to complete. So it can be a nice break from games that really push you to think about your moves strategically.