Chenso Club [Xbox]
Developed by Pixadome, Chenso Club is a colourful 2D action-platformer where you’ll take on the role of various members of the titular ‘Chenso Club’ as they defend the world against an alien invasion. Designed with co-op play in mind, you can bring a friend into the mix with local co-op; or you can face off alone against the aliens as you work your way through each of the levels. The five levels have different designs: Castle, Bio Lab, Clock Tower, Icy Mountain and Burning City, and the phases within vary from horizontal progression to travelling up through the castle or down through the Labs. There are a few different difficulty levels to choose from, but these all feel much harder than you’d expect, particularly the further in you get - so we both ended up having to put it down to Story Mode in order to get through it (me much sooner than Allan, admittedly).
There are five characters to play as, with cyborg-girl Blue being the introductory character, with the others unlocking over time (with final girl Molly being one of our favourites!). As well as having unique appearances, each character has their own fighting style, weapon and attacks to utilise. You’ve got standard attacks, as well as Special Attacks that deal greater damage (including a particularly cool one where Blue rides her chainsaw like a motorcycle across the ground), and dashes that leave you temporarily invulnerable, allowing you to pass through spikes and projectiles without damage. The jumping and dashing does feel a bit… odd and floaty at times, which caused both of us an unbelievable amount of frustration as we’d fall into death pits at the bottom of the levels, only to immediately do so again repeatedly.
You start with a baseline of 20 HP, measured in life-force, with this is being able to be collected from enemies to replenish your health. As you progress, enemies will be stronger, taking more health from you upon successful attacks, and going off the edge of the screen causes you to ‘blast off’ before respawning, minus a chunk of health in the process. As well as being your health, life-force also acts as a currency in the game, with Shops appearing at times for you to purchase upgrades and special items that will help you along the way, including max HP increases and power-ups, though making a purchase comes with risk, as now your health is reduced - at least until you collect some more life-force.
The visuals are adorable, with an almost chibi design for the characters, and enemies having cute base designs that switch into ugly versions at the point of attack. The soundtrack is really satisfying to listen to, with lots of upbeat tunes and catchy tracks. The story is told through the use of comic-styled panels, and the level transitions allow you to move your character’s silhouette against a backdrop, before you move on to the next area. As you reach the end of each world, you’ll come face to face with a Nemesis - a bigger boss enemy that you’ll have to destroy in order to unlock new characters and progress onto new levels and whilst there aren’t many of these, they are inventively designed and offer a decent challenge.
There are various mini-game style events that occur at random, such as helping the Janitor, Alf, to clean up trash; attacking Big Brain Brian as he floats around the screen; Super Fans invading the level, leaving you responsible for protecting them from aliens whilst they hug you; you can bump into an “all-knowing seer” who offers to see your future, bringing with it a challenge (and reward) if you accept; and more - additionally, there’s a “Cool Bus” that you can find at the end of Phases where you can compete in Wilhelm’s Game Room to fill up a vial of blood in order to gain potential prizes such as speed boosts. Prizes here are split into three tiers, with their unlocks stacking - so if you reach the highest one, you’ll also get the lower prizes, too. These mini-games are a fun inclusion and help to break up some of the monotony that comes from just wiping out enemies level after level.
After defeating a Nemesis, you’ll be invited to walk down The Red Carpet in a strange segment that has you fighting off fans and posing for photos in order to increase your follower count on Chirp, a social network that all of the Chenso Club are members of! After growing your following, you can purchase various upgrades and unlockables through your Chirp account, which will add them into the random drops throughout the game’s levels. This helps to add a little bit more variety in the items you’ll find, but aside from this the levels feel mostly the same within each world, which is a bit of a shame.
Upon reaching a “Game Over” screen, you’ll see a rundown of your stats for the current run: Time Played, Enemies Killed, Rooms Cleared, Bosses Killed, Damage Dealt, Damage Taken and number of Quests and Events you’ve completed; much like other roguelikes, this ends up serving as encouragement to go for another run to try and improve upon your stats. It does feel like it’s missing some elements, such as alternate game modes, or secrets to find, but that might come down to us being spoiled for choice with roguelikes in the past. We’d definitely say it’s worth a go, but it’s unlikely to be one that ends up in our regular rotation. Chenso Club is still a fun - if slightly frustrating - game that offers an enjoyable time, and surprisingly deep story, that is decent for local co-op play with a friend, so if you’re looking for something that fits that criteria, then you can pick it up for £11.99 on Xbox.
In the end, we decided to give Chenso Club the Collecting Asylum rating of 7/10.
Are you interested in Chenso Club? What do you think of it?
Let us know in the comments below!
- V x
Thank you to RenaissancePR for the Chenso Club Xbox review code!
