Ink has become a theme in quite a few games in the past few years. Capcom have been using it extensively in their fighting game department, with Street Fighter 4 using a bold-lined ink style to make their models stand out. The popular Okami (also by Capcom) uses an inky brush to interact with the environment. The aim is usually to add a calligrapher’s flourish to proceedings, invoking a somewhat hand-drawn style. In Sumioni: Demon Arts, ink is a central theme. As an Inkgod, you can draw your own path to victory, summon the elements and wash away obstacles, all with the sweep of a finger. This has the potential to be liberating, but equally the potential to be infuriating. Which does this game achieve? A bit of both, to be honest.
The first benefit of this central theme is in art style. With a look mimicking ancient artwork painted by calligraphy brush. More directly, the style is known as sumi-e, a method of painting in black ink only. This lends itself to all aspects of presentation, from UI to sprites. Sumioni was originally a full retail title in Japan, and this shows in the game’s accomplished visual flair.
Story presentation is limited to text scrolling on (admittedly sumptuous) backgrounds, telling a fairly generic tale of Japanese demons and mythical creatures combatting the gods and evil. I find it quite hard to pay it much attention, to be honest. Basically you’re a demon, and with lion and bird companions you seek to save the world from some evildoers. Standard fare.
In its essence, Sumioni is a sidescrolling hack and slasher, but it offers some unique features. With the ink god’s power bestowed upon you, you can use it to make platforms to walk on. This means the task of trundling left to right (which accounts for 90% of levels) is controlled by the path you want to take around enemies and obstacles. Spiky wheels are common, and will usually need you to build an ink bridge if you wish to pass them unscathed. Other enemies are also occasionally easier to avoid than attack. Ink can also be used in the form of Arts, which allow you to invoke fire and lightning.
There’s encouragement for use of the ink platforms, which comes in the shape of a damage modifier if you stay off the ground. Platforms fade over time, though, so attention must be paid to your footing. If you wish to remove a platform quicker, you also have access to water, which removes ink as well as most projectiles, which comes in very handy.
Most of your time is spent attacking something that covers the whole of the right of the screen, be it a fort or a boss. Almost every stage ends in this way. It is the perfect time to summon your companions, the bird and the lion, to attack the enemy for you. While they lunge at the foe and produce some ridiculous laser beams (yeah, I don’t know why either, but damn if it isn’t cool the first time), you are afforded precious time to concentrate on avoiding enemy attacks and setting up your next move.
The biggest downfall is a lack of variety. Almost every level is the same, with the only platforming on offer caused by your own whims, not by necessity of terrain. With only some basic attacks at your disposal outside of the summons, your range of approaches are limited at best, and mean creative battling is sort of out of the question, except for your placement on the screen. When you’re not trudging from left to right to knock down a tower/boss, you’re escaping from a giant (oh wait, that’s still going from left to right, my bad) or are locked in a box with a timer and told to survive. You will constantly yearn for some actual level design, as the developer apparently believed that the ability to make your own platforms meant they didn’t have to create an environment themselves, save for vague enemy placement and spikes. Just make your own, you lazy game player!
There’s also an obsession with multitasking between buttons and screen, as you frantically remove bullets while still trying to slash and manoevure yourself into an optimal position. This is somewhat alleviated by an option to attack by tapping the screen, but this can have the unwanted side effect of recognising brush strokes as just an attack input. After a while, however, it will start to almost feel natural, and swishing across the screen while avoiding enemy fire will click together as one.
The game can end pretty abruptly, with my first playthrough lasting only 6 stages before I was graced with the worst ending. As such, it doesn’t really advertise the criteria with which you achieve a good ending, except to tease you with ranks and the appearance of a minimap which implies lower branches to travel to as you go on. Unsurprisingly, these ranks enable your path towards success, allowing you to branch downwards towards the true ending of the game. At least, I assume it’s the ranks; the game never explicitly tells you. Even with the extra paths, the overall experience is fairly short, making the entire thing feel more like a diversion than a fully-fleshed world.
Light RPG elements pervade the short running time, implying that multiple playthroughs are a must to increase your demon’s health and ink capacity to a degree where you can deal with the more challenging threats afforded by the lower branches of the map’s path. That said. any lengthening of playtime is largely artificial, as later stages are spiky in difficulty, and you eventually need to perfect them if you want to reach the bottom. This repeating of levels until you perfect them is not everyone’s idea of fun, and is likely to frustrate.
While not the most exciting sidescroller around, Sumioni does plenty right to justify giving it a go; it’s just a shame it doesn’t last. You’re likely to be enamoured with the visual style and the ability to roam freely with ink, but it doesn’t know how to sustain itself. How far you go into it will depend on your patience and skill, but if you just want to ‘finish’ it once, it’ll take but an hour of your time. With the lack of variety on offer, though, that hour may just be enough.