Rakshasa

We are now entering into what I call UFOSoft’s “India Period”. This game takes place in India. The following game has a character who I’m PRETTY sure is supposed to be Indian. Game #41 is directly inspired by an Indian board game. I imagine someone on staff went to India and came back EXTREMELY inspired, which is such a fucking game dev thing, that shit happens ALL THE TIME, I kinda love it being represented here.

Rakshasa

God I feel this, buddy. This is me most days.

In Rakshasa you play as Jangi, this Karnov-ass mother fucker, a village chief who’s entire village is slaughtered by demons. Jangi fights back, but is brutally killed as well. However, he finds himself re-awakening as a spirit, clinging to life. He can regain control of his body and fight on, in revenge for his people.

Rakshasa

Y’all like Ghosts n’ Goblins? Cause that’s EXTREMELY what this game is. No other game is more inspired by something, I think. It’s got the same slow stiff movement, lack of air control, and hard as fuck difficulty. This game is BONKERS hard, top 5 hardest games in the pack, for sure. You can walk and jump, and aim your attack at an angle. You’ll WISH you can aim straight up and down, as things come from those angles and they will fuck your day up. You cAN aim down by jumping, but again, you don’t have much mobility in the air. You can get powerups for your attack, three different weapons: spread shot, a short shotgun burst. Homing, long range but slow homing rings. And fireball, long range, fast, and very damaging. It’s the best, IMO. Charged, it has really good range and width, and missing an enemy with an attack is DEVESTATING, so making sure things land with a charged fireball will save your life a LOT.

Rakshasa

This game’s major gimmick is its unique life system. You don’t have lives. Instead, each time you die, you have a chance to return to the land of the living. Rings will spawn, and you float around the screen as a spirit. Grab all the rings, and you’re back! But with each death, more rings will spawn, and more nemies will too, flying around to hit you. And they get faster and more violent with each death. You only need to get hit once for game over. You start the game doing this actually, and it’s very funny that you can start the game and IMMEDIATELY game over if you fucking suck at dodging this purple blob, though you probably won’t.

Rakshasa’s music is sparse, it’s most ambiance and animal sounds. It’s art is good, but a you looking like Karnov is very distracting. Those purple fly enemies are appearing a LOT in recent games. A LOT of bug imagery has been appearing in recent games actually. Huh, I wonder what that’s about. But yeah I really love the Indian flavor here, but I’ve always really liked Indian culture, I had a lot of Indian friends as a kid. The game is hard as fucking nails, but it IS learnable, like any GNG game, and it’s very rewarding once you do.

8/10