Some Japanese Gameplay Impressions For Umihara Kawase Fresh!

Umihara Kawase Fresh! was recently shown off by Success at its first closed demo event this week, and gameplay impressions from Japanese players who attended the event have come in. [Thanks, Wanikun on Twitter! Photo credit to pikuri on Twitter.]

Here are the highlights:

• Umihara Kawase Fresh!’s controls are one the easiest to get used to out of the series thus far, with the Rocket Dash being easy to perform. One player likened it to Sayonara Umihara Kawase’s controls.

• The open maps have been handled naturally, and there are routes that more skilled players can take to get to places faster. Every time you reach a new checkpoint, the game overwrites your respawn point to that place.

• Umihara Kawase Fresh! seems to take into account past criticisms that the games are hard to get into, so that hurdle has been lowered by adding in a story, checkpoints, quests, and an open world. It seems to be a great game for newcomers. Furthermore, lives are now absent, although Backpack items are still present in the game with an unknown purpose.

• As part of the new world presented in this game, enemies other than fish appear, but are integrated naturally without feeling out of place.

• Previously completed quests can be re-challenged in Time Attack mode.

• Cotton from Cotton: Fantastic Night Dreams (announced back in September) was playable in the demo!

Umihara Kawase Fresh! is set to come out on Nintendo Switch in the first half of 2019.