Kikura

Kikura is a retro arcade-style shooting game set in a Japanese-inspired world. You play through stages 1 to 6 in order, fighting yokai and dodging barrages of bullets as Setsuna and Tsukumo investigate a cursed beach in the parallel world of Utsushiyochigai.

Setsuna and Tsukumo

Setsuna is an office worker who gains yokai powers after meeting Tsukumo, a clock yokai. Tsukumo can manipulate time with Kokuikkoku (KIK), and the two travel between the human world and Utsushiyochigai to fight yokai. Their routine takes a turn when Tsukumo learns of an abandoned house on a secluded beach where yokai are making the sea rough and driving people away from fishing.

Utsushiyochigai is another Japan, a parallel world once connected to the human world and inhabited by gods and yokai. The two worlds once shared civilizations, festivals and events, but contact faded over time until people forgot their connection to the other world. Gods and yokai then became phantom beings in the human world.

The beach’s haunting began when a young fisherman disappeared centuries ago. His family stayed behind, waiting for him, and eventually became yokai out of hatred for the sea that had taken him. Eerie voices from their abandoned house grew louder, more yokai appeared, and the sea became too rough for people to fish. After hearing about the incident, Setsuna agrees to join Tsukumo’s investigation.

Shooting mechanics

Alongside the game’s basic shooting mechanics, you can use three special abilities:

• KIK (Koku-I-Kkoku): stop time.
• GST (Ghost): increase attack power and become invincible.
• REN: turn enemy bullets into point items.

If you get a game over, you can restart from the stage where you lost as many times as you like. The game is designed for players with some experience in shooting games.

Music and setting

The soundtrack combines Japanese and Chinese instruments with modern melodies and rhythms.