Uppers, in case you didn’t know, is a forthcoming action game from Marvelous for the PS Vita from the mind of Keinchiro Takaki, the producer of the Half-Minute Hero games (also published by Marvelous.) In the game, reckless fighters gather from around the world to do battle on the aptly named Last Resort Island, where rules don’t exist and the combatants can get into as much mayhem and wanton destruction as they please. The game looks to be an action beat ’em up with absolutely no limits that favors a button mashing style which auto-adjusts to perform the attack types based on your position relative to the target, up to and including aerial combos. It appears as though the game will be a true free for all, designed to entertain the players with as much over the top chaos as possible. There have been a series of short but amazing videos with excellent music tracks showcasing the style and power of the different characters you can choose from and we’ve just received a new vid featuring a pair of irreverent brawlers distributing punishment both on the city streets and in a moving subway car. Take a look at the preview for Nicole and Tenmei Sanada below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGrU_W_eWtA
Based on the footage shown here, I’m not expecting this to be a technical tour de force or a precision based action game along the lines of, say, Ninja Gaiden or Devil May Cry. The enemies mostly stand around waiting to receive their knuckle sandwiches, but that’s all right too. It looks like the focus of Uppers will be to entertain and amuse, although I’m sure that varoous difficulty settings will allow for players to ramp up the challenge to some degree. At any rate, with what looks to be a fun, anime inspire visual style and crazy attacks and environmental interaction, Uppers seems like one heck of a good time. If you enjoyed what you saw here, there are more preview videos for other characters on Marvelous’ Japanese Youtube channel as well.
Uppers is scheduled to come out for the PS Vita in Japan on April 21, 2016. It is being developed by Bullets (Kenka Bancho) and published by Marvelous. No word on a Western release yet, but when we hear anything about it, we’ll let you know.
