Umurangi Generation
Either a fresh, laidback, visual experience or an engaging, arcadey, bumpin game; Umurangi Generation is one of those games where the pleasure is found with your view on gaming in general.
To a common player, it may just look like a straightforward “Find objective, complete objective” game. Of which, let’s not lie to ourselves, it is and that can be pretty dull for some people. But, I found myself playing each level twice: Once to intake my surroundings, keeping mental notes, understanding the worldbuilding and crackin' lil gags with the NPCs around the stage because I enjoyed putting myself in the character’s (invisible) shoes. The second time, with the information I had gathered, to go with a more arcade “speed clear” approach since trying to map out an effective path to knock out every objective in under 10 minutes was a fun little challenge. Now, I didn’t go HAM on it to try and get the best darn time there is but more like a little trial of “Okay let’s see what I can do…”
– Real player with 14.0 hrs in game
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Umurangi Generation is pretty much the ultimate “lo-fi beats to relax/study to” game. There’s not really a whole lot to playing it. You just walk around taking pictures of things in environments that are totally static except for characters going through animation cycles. And yet its culmination of lo-fi graphics and music is still absorbing enough that I played through each level multiple times and got 100 percent completion.
It’s one of those games with low-poly, low-resolution graphics designed to look like it was made in the late 90’s (other examples like Paratopic or Sagebrush deliberately evoke the original PlayStation but Umurangi is more like the Dreamcast). But instead of being a horror game its vibe is somewhere between Jet Set Radio and Neon Genesis Evangelion – colorful urban landscapes, anime-inspired characters, rap music, impending kaiju doom. It works so well that during my first run I kept playing just to see where each new level would take me. These levels aren’t just attractive in a sort of retro, cozy way, they’re also packed with small details, just begging you to photograph every inch of them. The chillhop music fits all this perfectly. I bought the soundtrack and still listen to it.
– Real player with 13.7 hrs in game