Chambara (PlayStation 4) Review

By Luna Eriksson 10.05.2017

Review for Chambara on PlayStation 4

Grab a friend and some refreshments, Chambara is here to bring some couch multiplayer to the living room, in a pure stealth arena combat title which mixes traditional multiplayer arena fun with some hide-and-seek elements to create an entertaining experience for two up to four players. How many nights will this last though?

Some sincerely missed thing from many a gamer's childhood is those glorious Donkey Kong 64 deathmatch sessions that lasted from the moment the school ended to late in the evening, and those fun hide-and-seek games during the breaks at school. Chambara takes strong elements from both to create a fun hide-and-seek arena title in this small, but right on the spot, piece of software.

The gameplay is extremely easy to grasp, and yet it shows one of the biggest strengths of many of the most iconic local multiplayer titles; gameplay that is extremely simple and stripped down to its very core. The goal is simply to hit the opponents, but there is a catch. Each player is just a shadow in one of two colours, the very same two colours that the entire stage is made up off in one way or another, which adds a lot of stealth element and sense of tag hide-and-seek.

Screenshot for Chambara on PlayStation 4

It is very entertaining to consider staying to camp in that spot where no one can see you or going out on a hunt, risking entering fields of the other colour and getting exposed. Or maybe to simply do the ye olde screen peek, which the gameplay strongly seems to actually encourage and thrive off as it helps punish campers a lot.

Few modern games come close to the local multiplayer experience Chambara can offer to the right crew of friends, but there comes a problem. This is the only way to play this. It offers no single-player nor online multiplayer, which is something worth to notice for people without the ability to regularly get friends together to play, but the playoff if able to is a very entertaining, albeit, short experience that truly rewinds time a couple of decades, both in gameplay and mind set. Because who can resist a fun game of hide-and-seek?

Screenshot for Chambara on PlayStation 4

Cubed3 Rating

7/10
Rated 7 out of 10

Very Good - Bronze Award

Rated 7 out of 10

Chambara is a very strong local multiplayer title that catches some of the appeal of the late 90's deathmatch experiences, added with some stealthy hide-and-seek elements. While it's fun while it lasts, the fact that at least two players are required to play, mixed with the feeling of being one of those "in between" games that are played for like 10 minutes, makes it difficult for it to last as well as some of the older classics, and makes it hard to build up a great gaming night on its own, but the time it gets in the spotlight will be remembered fondly by those present, and will be revisited again and again.

Developer

team ok

Publisher

USC

Genre

Action

Players

1

C3 Score

Rated $score out of 10  7/10

Reader Score

Rated $score out of 10  0 (0 Votes)

European release date Out now   North America release date Out now   Japan release date None   Australian release date Out now   

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