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0 Kotama and Academy Citadel is an Action, Adventure, Metroidvania from the minds of Atomstring Games. With their publisher 2P Games, Kotama and Academy Citadel starts you as Kotama, a candidate for the Carmel Star and the labelled exchange student of this tale. You venture through the four parts of the academy to collect votes for the election and retrieve the keepsakes. Can you successfully become the new Carmel Star? Or will you discover the many secrets that lie behind these academy’s walls?
Do you think being the Carmal Star gives you the right to do the Caramelldansen?
Gameplay
You have now entered the labyrinthine that’s both a city and a school known as Carmel Academy. A place that has 4 branches of academies is what makes Carmel, well, Carmel. You’ve got your Art Academy, the Biology Academy, the Aerospace Academy and the Architecture Academy. Plus there are the different clubs that you’ll come across, like the Food club, the Alien club and the Fishhead Gang? The academy aside, let’s cover Kotama and the abilities she’s able to perform in the game.
Kotama has the ability to wield weapons with an almost masterful talent, but she can also take advantage of Fluid Detonation. Fluid detonation is the absolute bread and butter for the game when it comes to both causing damage and healing. You’ll see a small pin move down the more fluid you cover your enemies in. That pin is the amount of health your opponent loses when you use your Fluid Detonation. When it tells give you that health back if you get hurt. Which the fluid is easy to apply by attack or parrying.
Kotama has access to what the Prince of Persia does but where your actions can rewound in that game, we reverse time in the whole academy citadel. Temporal Coils are used each time you enter a room and moves time forward one hour in time. And you can only recover your Temporal Coils from the Rewind station. Yet, be careful because if you run out of Temporal Coils, you will enter temporal stasis. Which makes enemies harder to fight.
Now there is a small array of abilities you can unlock when upgrading the weapons, but I decided to stick to good old Dodge, duck, dip, dive and dodge. I try to use the second abilities to each weapon, but couldn’t or wouldn’t utilize it because it’s honestly not needed. Now finally, keep your eyes out for memocards, chronopetals, Life Jade shards and Temproal Coils.
Graphics and Audio
I’m not going to lie and say that the art and appeal of this game wasn’t what caught my attention. The art from the cutscenes to the character portraits is 2-d and very detail oriented. While the rest of the game’s models and environments are 3-d. Atomstring Games really are talented individuals who have a lot of passion and skills to create this wonderous world. From the UI to the attack splash animation is so clean that I keep preforming the Liquid Denotation a lot.
Then there is the unique npc design from the characters we interact with to the ones we fight. You have each academy having enemies that stick with the theme and never cross contaminate one another. There’s even the npcs that are wearing unique helmets that I question a lot through my playthrough.
The audio from the game is actually enjoyable to listen in a loop. Especially each boss fight. I swear that each OST for every boss is a banger that getting into the groove is like magic. Each fight’s condition was during temproal stasis making the fight extra difficult. Besides the OST from the boss fights, you know you got my attention with accurate and clean weapon sfx. Which Atomstring Games came in spades with and get full stars.
My only grip with the game would be no audio cue for when a certain ability recharged. Which at the writing of this review was added in.
Longevity
I managed to beat and get 100% in the game around 24 hours of gameplay. Statistically speaking, if players focus only on the story, you can finish it in 10 hours. Yet, I highly recommend exploring, finding and unlocking everything in the game. It took some time for me to get the grips on each weapons work and stuck to my favorite to handle. Which each weapon has their benefits, but I always go for speed to apply the fluid faster.
Final Thoughts
Kotama and Academy Citadel was a fun experience that you can tell it took years to put together. With a lot of passion behind each character, story, and twist that I came across. Sure there was some very voluptuous reasons to play the game. The gameplay more than makes up for it. There’s even the creative mechanics that you’ll learn how to preform and execute on the fly. So, if you pick up the game, don’t give up so soon. You’ve just start your way to being the next Carmel Star.
I just hope they read this and understand to just have certain pop-ups when getting the same item again only once.
I give Kotama and Academy Citadel the Thumb Culture Gold Award
Disclaimer: A code was received in order to write this review.
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