LifeisXbox’s Chenso Club review | Here’s a story you definitely haven’t seen in a game before: There’s an alien invasion going on, and it’s up to you, the player, to stop it. That’s the basic premise of Chenso Club, it’s a basic story background for an old-school-like game with rogue-like elements. But is the game as simple as its narrative? You’re about to find out. Aurora Punks and Curve Games are responsible for publishing Chenso Club, while Pixadome is its maker.
Most Memorable Moment
The game’s villain is revealed in a plot twist near the end, along with a sobering account of his past. I can’t go into details about it without giving away surprises, but I can say without a doubt that it was my favourite section of the game.
ℹ️ Reviewed on Xbox One | Review code provided by PR/publisher, this review is the personal opinion of the writer.
What we Liked!
- “Comidic” | As you can see from the image above, Chenso Club has a good sense of humour in its cutscenes. And just like it seems in that same screenshot, most of the story is presented in a comic-like fashion. It fits the game pretty well, as it shows the game’s basic narrative quickly, leaving more time for the gameplay to shine.
- Simple controls, difficult mastery | Chenso Club plays and looks like a retro game. You can move, jump, dash, make a heavy attack, and make a light attack. Not much intricacy, right? Well, yes and no. Your health, the number of enemies you face, and the damage you take will all depend on the difficulty setting you choose. I began out playing on the second-hardest difficulty setting out of four, but I had to lower it to advance. In the end, I decided to play the game on the easiest setting so I could finish it quickly to write this review. Oh, I almost forgot to mention that a chapter has no checkpoints. I didn’t get a chance to try out the local co-op option, which is accessible after completing the tutorial. The shop that occasionally appears after finishing a room offers a variety of items, power-ups, and “companions,” all of which require you to use life points to get them. You can unlock various power-ups to appear in your subsequent attempts through unlockable unique followers in a section of the hub area called the “chirp network”.
- Variety | There’s a good amount of overall variety here. Apart from the starting character, there are four unlockable characters, each with their own skills and different stats, which are unlocked when defeating a nemesis (boss). A decent amount of item, power-up, and companion variety is present, but not as much as in most rogue-likes. Six areas are present, each with its own enemies and soundtrack. There are also mini-bosses that can appear in regular rooms.
- Bonus levels/content | Depending on how much blood you collected, (how many enemies you killed), some bonus levels give you up to 3 awards. It appears that there are only two types of bonus levels: one that is static and has a time limit where you have to kill up to 30 enemies, and another that has a moving camera and requires you to move around while slaying monsters. You won’t be given a second chance if you fall from the scenery on the latter. These rewards can all be accessed through other means as well. I discovered a room with a wheel of fortune that you can spin to either receive a reward or lose 10 health. You’ll be walking down a red carpet after finishing a chapter, posing for photos, while assaulting obnoxious fans.
- Decent soundtrack | As I’ve already mentioned, there is unique music for each chapter. The songs all have the same retro vibe as the rest of the game does, and they all match their particular chapters/locations rather well.
Mixed Feelings
- Nope | There’s nothing that fits this part of the review.
What we Disliked
- Minor Issues | I did experience two issues while playing. An empty dialogue box got stuck on top of my screen for a while multiple times. I also had some FPS drops happening when things got too chaotic, it didn’t happen many times though.
How long to beat the story | less than 3 hours (lowest difficulty)
How long to achieve 1000G | 6+ hours
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Hi there, I’m Gabriel Colombo (Hence my reviewer name), I live in Brazil and I’ve been gaming since I was around 5 years old. Xbox became my main platform on the Xbox 360 era, before that I had played a bit on PC, Polystation (basically a skinned SNES), PlayStation 1 and 2. I really enjoy to experience immersive worlds, but I also enjoy playing silly games to have a laugh or just have fun.
