Game Review: Cilla

By Al

Players: 1
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, XBox, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5

Shoot'em ups, or shmups as they're also called, aren't exactly known for having strong stories, but the game that we're looking at today sets out to buck that very trend. Cilla is set to arrive soon to all major consoles, and it's a horizontal shooter that has a story that takes center stage. We're going to be taking a look at the Nintendo Switch version of the game today, but everything below is going to apply to all versions of the game for the most part. There's a lot to cover in this one, so let's dive right in!

Explaining Cilla's story is both easy and complicated, with the devil being in the details. Details I admittedly will inevitably get wrong. First off, Cilla is both the name of the game and the name of its main character. She is a "Perfect Soldier" who is created to be an all-obeying killing machine who is also a skilled pilot. "All-obeying" might be a bit of a stretch though, as there seems to have been a conflict involving Perfect Soldiers not too long before the game begins. Due to this, and due to everyone probably just being military jerks in general, her commanders and comrades don't care for her very much. This is in spite of the fact that she is clearly their strongest soldier, and pretty much is tasked with saving humanity all on her own when an invading alien army arrives. The game's story cuts between Cilla, her commanders and comrades, and eventually the alien commander himself. Each stage opens with an illustration that sets the stage for what's currently going on. That illustration is then followed by a mission briefing that fills in any and all gaps. Additional cutscenes happen throughout each level as well, and these break up the action in ways that I'll admit are mostly bad. Even though I appreciated the strong attempt at story delivery, I can't help but feel that Cilla falls short of delivering a strong narrative despite its best efforts. Cilla's plot is predictable, full of clichés, and even badly translated into to English too. None of this breaks the game, but it makes one wonder why they bothered in the first place. I guess we can at least hope that the game fares better in the gameplay department.

If you had told me that the development team behind Cilla had never played a shmup before, horizontal or otherwise, I'd believe you. There are so many strange gameplay decisions made here that I'm sure wouldn't have been done by someone familiar with the genre. There are no true weapon upgrades, no screen-clearing bombs, your ship has a life bar but no lives, enemies deal damage that that seems very inconsistent with their enemy typing, and most stages don't even end with a boss encounter. The only thing the game mostly gets right is that you have a ship that can fly and shoot. It's almost as if the developers went with the genre because it seemed like it would be hard to mess up, but they still did pretty much that. Powerups can only be held one at a time, and are all temporary. Said powerups can be a shield, a stronger weapon, a clock that slows down time, and a healing item. I already mentioned that the weapon upgrades are temporary, but they are also the only way to shoot in any direction but straight in front of you. Also, the time-slowing clocks are relatively useless as they slow down everything on the screen including you, which means that they don't technically improve your ability to dodge at all. It all makes for a strange gameplay experience, one that thankfully isn't very difficult. It would be absolutely game-destroying if Cilla also was challenging too. If you stay out of the way of most enemies (The best tactic in this game really.), you're sure to eventually get to the end.

Speaking of avoiding enemies, that has to be the oddest aspect of the game in my opinion. Not only are enemy types very limited, but they come at you in a set of repetitive, predictable ways. Just about every enemy fires at you at a constant rate, and while you can sometimes shoot their bullets too, it's best to just let them scroll their way off the screen. There are certain moments when you must take out some of the bigger ships, but these sections can be cheesed too. Simply flying up or down slowly, or even tanking some of their hits, will end most of these encounters after a few seconds. The most dangerous enemy in the entire game though has to be the circular saws. Each attack from them takes away 10 of your 25 hit points, far more damage than anything else in the game. There will be times when you'll be joined by a friendly ship that can shoot at enemies, but they can also be killed by the enemies as well. That last part makes me wonder if multiplayer was on the table at some point in development. There are about a dozen stages in the game, and two or three of them have what you can consider boss encounters. They're nothing special, but they are a break from the monotony.

Even though I've done a lot of complaining so far, I will admit that there were plenty of times where I found myself having fun playing Cilla. The wonky translation gave it a B-movie vibe, and the story was taken so seriously that it eventually became silly. It's also a rather easy game once you figure out how to work within its limits. I only got one game over during my entire playthrough, and that was on one of the final levels. I did find it annoying how often the action would stop for a cutscene, but I came to accept it. What I didn't really come to accept was the length of some of the stages. I get that the developers were probably trying to increase difficulty by making the later stages very long, but they just became endurance rounds of keeping oneself interested. They repeat the same enemy patterns over and over again, have cutscenes you don't want to see, and usually don't even grace you with a special boss encounter at the end. Nothing in Cilla is truly horrible, it all just falls short of delivering an excellent game.

Visually Cilla looks pretty good, even if it is on the generic side of things. There's nothing specifically cool about any of the enemy or ship designs, and you'll pretty much see everything the game will throw at you long before the halfway point. The opening illustration for each of the levels are neat, but that's pretty much the only visual flair the game has to offer. I guess the one positive you get from the lack of anything too visually intense would be that it runs well, but that's a weak plus in my opinion. Sound-wise, the game delivers music that I'm not totally sure didn't come from a stock sound library. Even if it was created for this game, it has a generic feel to it where it could be placed into any action game with no one being any the wiser. That said, the music is actually pretty good, but just sits in the background for the most part. I guess I can say that it at least didn't become repetitive in the longer levels, but it also didn't help those sessions feel lively either. Oh, and I think it goes without saying that Cilla features no voice acting at all.

Beating Cilla took me a bit over an hour, which isn't too bad for a shooter like this. Even though the genre is full of short games, Cilla has a serious problem when it comes to replayability. There is a score system for each level, and you can replay any of them at any time once you clear them, but I can't see anyone bothering with that at all. Most shooters are meant to be played over and over again, and Cilla's story-heavy emphasis hurts it in that regard. Why replay a level just to have to sit through two mid-level cutscenes that are just as long as the shooting segments? All this aside, the game's low price tag of $6.99 does make picking it up easier even if it's just for a single run. I do wish there was more content here, maybe multiplayer even, but what we get is mostly fine.

While I don't think I can recommend Cilla to a casual audience, I do think that horizontal shooter fans might find something to enjoy here. It's not the best game in the genre by far, but it has some fun moments, and the story can be entertaining too, even if not for all the right reasons. Get it if you can stomach a story-heavy shooter. If you can get it on sale, even better. All my negative thoughts aside, I do hope that the developers work on another shooter title in the future. There's definitely great effort on display here, even if it falls short in most every way. See you in the next one!

Check Out Cilla on Nintendo Switch:
https://www.nintendo.com/us/store/products/cilla-switch/

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Story: B-
Gameplay: C
Graphics: C
Music/Sound: C
Value: B

Overall: C+

Pros:
+ A horizontal shooter that chooses to focus more on story over action.
+ Even though the script takes itself too seriously, and has lots of translation issues, I did find it entertaining for the most part.
+ There are some neat visual touches, like the one-screen illustrations that open each level.
+ Isn't too difficult, and players of moderate skill levels will be able to clear it without much fuss.
+ Decently priced at just $6.99

Cons:
- Very few genre tropes are present. Don't expect traditional powerups, enemy diversity, or even bosses here.
- Some levels just go on for far longer than is necessary, with the same enemy encounters repeating over and over again.
- Beyond getting a better rank in a level, there is no real reason to play it again once you've beaten it.
- The many in-level cutscenes can become grating after a while, and are often a chore to sit through.
- There's really nothing about Cilla that stands out, it's generic in almost every way.

A copy of this game was provided to us free-of-charge by the publisher for the purpose of this review. This did not affect our review in any way.

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The game is a kinda witty at least.

#Cilla