REVIEW: Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid: Burst Forth!!


Title	Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid: Burst Forth!! Choro-gon☆Breath
Developer	Bushiroad / Kaminari Games
Publisher	Aksys Games
Release Date	August 25th, 2022
Genre	Shmup
Platform	Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4
Age Rating	Teen
Official Website

I have been a fan of Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid ever since the anime premiered a few years ago. I love the cast of characters and how they interact with each other. The story can get a bit serious at times as the dragons try to understand human nature, and watching Tohru fawn over Kobayashi never gets old. I knew when I saw Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid: Burst Forth!! Choro-gon☆Breath that I would have to check out this shmup based on a show I loved so much. Now let’s see if this game is good, or just a cheap game trying to make bank off a beloved franchise.

The story here is pretty simple. After receiving a cryptic email, Miss Kobayashi and her maids go to Takiya’s house to investigate. There, they are sucked into his PC and will have to battle through hordes of enemies in order to make their escape. Tohru, Elma, and Kanna will have to work together if they are to escape this crazy PC world, but they will do whatever it takes to support their precious friend, Miss Kobayashi. In the end, the story here is enjoyable enough that fans of the anime will be entertained, but it can be easily skipped by those just looking to jump right in to some shmup action.

Graphically, Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid: Burst Forth!! Choro-gon☆Breath is pretty basic. The stages look nice, but there is nothing that really stands out about them. The enemy and boss sprites are nicely done, but there is nothing about them that makes them very memorable either. The cut-in sprites of the girls taking some clothing damage when you get hit, are pretty nice. Tohru’s poor maid outfit barely keeps her SFW when she has taken a few hits. The gallery mode in the game contains all these images, as well as quite a few pieces of artwork you can unlock by collecting pieces during each stage.

The music here is pretty much what you would expect in a shmup like this. It’s upbeat, and gets you pumped up to blast tons of baddies out of the skies. The story scenes are voiced by the same voice actors you know and love from the anime, and they did a great job with their performances here as well. The game is only voiced in Japanese, so English dub fans are out of luck here. Though, I think most fans of this series prefer the Japanese audio for a few reasons that I will not get into here.

Now to dig into the meat of any good shmup, the gameplay. I can safely say, everything here is very solid. The objective here is to blast your way through the game’s six stages using the three girls’ strengths to your advantage. Each of them has a different type of shot. Tohru’s shot is mostly straight-forward and has the most power. Elma has a very wide shot that still has a decent amount of power. Kanna has the least powerful shot, but it does heat seek enemies, which is very helpful during boss fights while trying to dodge the tons of bullets being thrown at you. The girls have a couple other tricks up their sleeves, as well. Each one has a dash attack that will knock enemies back, and an ultra powerful Choro-gon☆Breath move where they turn into their dragon forms and lay waste to everything on the screen. Each girl’s attack is slightly different in power, and Kanna’s will even restore some HP to the team. This is very important since each girl only has one line of health to make it through all six stages in story mode with no continues. Characters do recover a bit while not active and there are a few enemies that drop items which restore your HP, but it’s not nearly enough, so saving her breath attacks for the right moment is critical.

As you probably already guessed, the gameplay length here is pretty short. You can blast through these six stages in under a couple of hours, easily. The developers have countered this by adding a ton of difficulty features, letting players redo any stage when they choose to after they have completed them, and a Boss Rush mode. There are five different difficulty levels to choose from. These range from practice for the noobs, like me, to extreme for those looking for a hardcore challenge. This can be further tweaked by raising or lowering the Risk Level. Higher levels will make you take more damage upon getting hit, but it greatly raises the drop rate for treasures and pieces for the unlockable illustrations in the gallery. I really liked this because it let me improve my skill on easy level gradually, while unlocking some fantastic gallery pics. Boss Rush mode was great since it allowed me to get used to all the different patterns they use, and there is another unlockable mode that I will not spoil here.

At the end of the day, Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid: Burst Forth!! Choro-gon☆Breath is a decent title overall. Fans of the series will have a great time with the cast of characters they love, and shmup fans will find some good gameplay to sink their teeth into. I don’t think this one has a ton of depth, but it is fun to play in short bursts, just to see how much you can improve on each stage and boss. Collecting all of the different collectibles is fun and adds a ton of replay value. I do think the $39.99 price tag is a bit much, but if you’re a big fan of the series, you’ll probably be alright with it. Everyone should pick this one up at some point, but maybe when it’s on sale.