(12 hours to see credits roll on the lowest difficulty the game calls Observer. Played on Steam Deck in Japanese.)
Nintendo’s Indie World showcases can be very different animals across languages. Take the one in early March, 2026 for example. While English one ended with the great news of Blue Prince coming to Switch 2, the Japanese book end simply reminded yours truly of this review’s subject matter.
Homura Hime flew so under the radar that PC Gamer included it in its weekly “hidden gems on Steam” column. Maybe it’s rightly so. The game is good, not great. If people got an itch for some good old “action adventure” that can be finished within a reasonable amount of time, Homura Hime is up to that particular task, though not much else.
Neither Trigger nor Tango
The titular Flame Lass is a devil exterminator tasked with taking out big 5 ones plaguing the land. Then she finds out that the whole thing is a façade that had repeated long before her time, so she got to expose the master mind behind it all…Look, this story is very basic, but at least it does not get cute like some came before it. Looking at you, NieR.
While the story is not much to write home about, the storytelling here is at least commendable. The art direction and font do not seem out of place in a studio Trigger production. Despite the game being a beefed up student game, its Japanese voice cast is packed with anime usual suspects outshines Biohazard Requiem.
But this “beefed up student game” feeling also feels off when compared to, say, Tango’s Hi-fi Rush. The 2023 game, being an expensive-to-make game with less patting and a lower price point, managed to keep all narrative aspects one except from a cartoonish polygonal extravaganza. Namely how the hero assembling their crew running parallel to the going-on over at rogue gallery headquarters. Homura Hime’s story feels it’s merely trying to keep up with the game.
It’s not to say that the game is lack of charm, though one has to find those in small corners. Like the credits player spent are candies and cookies. Combine that with the player character being the tall girl, there is pride in being someone’s sugar mommy.
So NieR, yet so far.
Mechanically speaking, Homura Hime is a “NieR like”, a mixture of spectacle fighter and bullet hell shooter. Though the button mapping is slightly different. For starter, there is no hold to aim or lock-on. Left trigger is for shooting, with a click of right stick to lock-on and target selection. Left bumper combined with face button is for skills. To encourage offense, the skills are not on cooldown. Those require certain amounts of strikes delivered or parries performed.
Unlike NieR titles, where dodge is the only way to avoid being hit, Homura Hime added a parry mapped to right bumper. No matter how improbably big the enemies’ swings seem, as long as the flash is red, the incoming blows can be parried. On the contrast, player has to duck when the flash is yellow. To keep talking about colors, all enemies have red life bars, then some have the purple bit. The purple bit require player to do quick-time event like parry segments to take off, very 2005’s God of War.
Between arenas there are platforming segments. This one being an admittedly smaller than NieR title, there is no double jump. The right bumper doubles as the contextual grapple hook and parrying pass spikey traps. Homura Hime’s another departure from NieR would be that it’s decidedly not an RPG. Player needs to explore for life bar and shooting capacity upgrades. But the game dose provide “builds” during talisman it call Omamori, parry to regenerate life one is very useful in later game.
This could be my 36-year-old cynical ass speaking, but yours truly found the game’s structure comically predictable. Every big enough space seemed like an arena to me and I was right every time. The game is separated into 9 chapters, first 5 about taking out five so-called archdemons. Then of course the third act turn happened and I got to fight a final boss who came out nowhere.
The game’s so-called ending choice is also comedy gold. The wrong choice would lead to something like Dan and Vinny’s This Is Run on Contra Hard Corp: a game over screen. Continue then the laconic player character would break the fourth wall and plead the player to choose rightly this time. Otherwise, the end credits (which did make me think I should have chosen Traditional Chinese given the developers’ names.) would not roll. Neither would the game give access to the hub with new print job or chapter select.
One thumb up, mildly recommended
Homura Hime is both aiming at my 36 years old ass and not really for me. It does harken back to a seemingly simpler time for video games and bring back the enjoyment back then. But in comparison to say Nine Sol, a game made me sob by its end, Homura Hime’s narrative left a lot to be desired.
Still for the asking price, Homura Hime does provide a good enough time. If one needs an interactive experience on par with lesser yet enjoyable Trigger show, one can do a lot worse than Homura Hime. Just do not go in excepting it to gob smack you like Edgerunner. The age rate should serve as warning enough.