Arashi Gaiden is a great bite-sized turn-based action game set within the confines of a puzzle game. While it might be more difficult than others may expect, it will prove satisfying for those who enjoy solving puzzles with flair.
When I was in middle school, a handful of my friends and I would play these pen-and-paper games of movement and puzzles. The goal was to “escape” from a poorly drawn maze on graph paper, making as few moves as possible. We didn’t get too far into playing these types of games, but the puzzling nature of the game captured our attention. Statera Studio and Wired Dreams Studio’s Arashi Gaiden is one of those simple-looking thinky games that will entertain as much as puzzle you, should you have the patience to see it through to its end.
Arashi Gaiden looks and feels just like any regular turn-based action game with some dashes and slashes. At its core, however, is an amalgamation of puzzle-solving mechanics involving avoiding traps, slashing through enemies, taking as little damage as possible, and a sprinkle of speedrunning. As a ninja, Arashi, your goal is to take down a cabal of enemy ninjas and reclaim important artifacts.
At the start, Arashi has no power-ups and can only dash through enemies. He’s placed into a small room and can move in a single direction (up, down, left, or right) on a grid. After making a move, enemies may make a single move, too. Once Arashi has slain the enemies on screen by dashing through them, he proceeds to the next stage. It’s an easy-to-understand turn-based setup.
These stages increase in difficulty bit by bit, stress-testing the player’s mastery of the current tools they’ve acquired. Sometimes, there are no enemies at all; instead, there’s a handful of traps to avoid or a set number of switches to activate in a short amount of time. By changing things up like this, the player is constantly needing to think about how to move about the grid in as few moves as possible, all the while monitoring Arashi’s health. If Arashi steps on a trap or lands next to an adjacent enemy, he’ll take critical damage and will need to restart the level.
Arashi soon acquires upgrades, like a shuriken that can deal 1HP of damage to an enemy and an arrow upgrade that can send him in another direction should he come in contact with that arrow. Using these upgrades cost energy, of which there is a finite amount, meaning that players have to be mindful of using these abilities sparingly to complete the level in short order.
At the end of each world is a boss battle against one of the enemy ninjas. These big bads throw bombs and have far more health than other enemies, making these battles tests of patience and skill unlike any of the preceding levels.
The overall feeling of slashing through enemies is quite exhilarating, especially when Arashi slashes through consecutive enemies in short order. The game rewards the player for chaining attacks and defeating enemies quickly, so chasing the three-star ranks requires mastery of Arashi Gaiden’s turn-based grid combat.
Things got quite difficult for me near the end of the second world. Arashi Gaiden has no hint system for advancement, nor is there a way to brute force a solution when things proved too challenging to proceed. It was entirely up to me to figure out how to avoid traps and slay enemies. I wish there was a hint feature for those who might struggle, but I’m sure that folks will end up looking up solutions on YouTube when the game is released.
I loved Arashi Gaiden’s 16-bit presentation, however. Its chiptune music and hand-drawn pixel art are reminiscent of the SNES-era of game design, and it clearly celebrates the simplicity of that era in each of its levels.
Completing Arashi Gaiden should take around 5 hours, maybe less if you pick up on its difficulty curve and master the grid combat. It’s a short yet sweet afternoon puzzle game that’s best enjoyed in a small number of sittings. Thanks to its simplistic control scheme, it would also be a great mobile game, should the developers opt to bring it to iOS and/or Android.
I’m hoping that Arashi Gaiden is shown off at a future GDQ event, especially because of how it values speedrunning and rewards players for completing levels quickly. In the hands of a puzzle gamer, I could see them showing off how to push Arashi Gaiden to its limits and demonstrate how to best complete some of its most difficult levels, too.
Arashi Gaiden is a great bite-sized turn-based action game set within the confines of a puzzle game. While it might be more difficult than others may expect, it will prove satisfying for those who enjoy solving puzzles with flair.
