I have to admit that I don't like visual novels at all. I just don't see the point. They're always too wordy and dry and boring to me. It's not that I don't like reading, far from it, it's just that most visual novels are badly written garbage that use 10,000 words to tell a story that only really needed a few hundred. The fact I can skip through almost all of it and still get the gist of what's going on is a prime indicator that they didn't need so goddamned much text. I'll say straight up that if I had known Kamikaze Lassplanes was this verbose I definitely wouldn't have bought it.
The story is about a kingdom that developed technology that lets hot girls transform into airplanes, which is about as anime-ass-anime as you can possibly get. Totally predictably, the girls have tragic backstories and the kingdom is hiding all sorts of deep dark secrets that make you question everything about what you're doing. And, of course, your male pilot can romance the sexy lassplanes so there is a light dating sim aspect to it all. And it's all quite boring, really.
Well, the first four chapters are bland banal nothing, but then chapter five hits you with a massive lore dump that almost kinda sorta maybe but not really makes up for the rest of it.
I'm not kidding when I say it's a 90/10 split between visual novel and shoot-em-up. There are literally hours and hours of text to read and bare minutes of actual gameplay. There are multiple endings based on what choices you make at various parts of the story to just hammer it home that this is intended as a story mode experience first and foremost.
There is a gameplay only arcade mode available as well but, unfortunately, the shoot-em-up side of Kamakaze Lassplanes isn't all that great either. It's just really simple and basic. It sets itself apart from other titles by having a health bar and shield instead of one hit kills and it also throws power ups at you constantly. Oftentimes there are more powerups bouncing around on screen than enemies. It's ultimately all just really only okay-ish. Not that much to say. Just like how the story doesn't really pick up until chapter five, the gameplay is boring as hell right up until the last chunk where suddenly things get really intense and fun. It's still only an OK shmup overall, but the last couple of gameplay sections are genuinely pretty good.
The other aspect of the game is the hot anime girls and it pulls that part off acceptably well. The girls do look pretty great, and there are the expected ecchi tropes like stumbling into the bath while a girl is in there as well as a beach scene among others. It's all fine. Not reason enough to buy it, but fine.
I said at the top that the game is polished and fully-featured and I'm not kidding. It's really well constructed compared to most indie shmups out there. Nothing feels like a placeholder that slipped through or was ripped from a free asset shop. I know that doesn't sound like high praise, but just look at the slop that's been coming out lately. Kamikaze Lassplanes is a work of art compared to a lot of them. And it has plenty to do between the multiple endings in story mode and the potentially endlessly replayable arcade mode that make it worth your $20. As long as you like visual novels, that is.
In the end, though, I'd have to say I'm pretty disappointed with Kamikaze Lassplanes. I didn't expect it to lean this heavily toward the visual novel side, but it's seriously a 90/10 split and that is way too much for me. It doesn't help that the story, as well as the gameplay, doesn't really get particularly good until nearly the end of the experience, so it especially feels like a waste of time to me even more than most VNs. If you're looking for a new shmup, this ain't worth it. Nor is it worth it if you just want an anime tiddy game. But if you are into visual novels and approach it from that perspective first, it's maybe OK. While Kamikaze Lassplanes isn't for me, but it definitely is by no means bad, so if you know what you're getting into before you buy it you'll likely have a better time than I did.
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