Review | YOHANE THE PARHELION -BLAZE in the DEEPBLUE-

A dungeon tucked away in the waters of Numazu comes out of its liquid grave, prompting many to search the uber labyrinth. When said folks end up not coming back, its up to the fortune teller Yohane and her wolf partner Lailaps venture into the depths themselves to figure out just what in the world this place is supposed to be and save the people within. Developed and published by INTI CREATES, ‘YOHANE THE PARHELION -BLAZE in the DEEPBLUE-‘ is what I would best describe as a 2D ‘casualvania’ action.

This game is based on the recently aired anime ‘Genjitsu no Yohane -SUNSHINE in the Mirror-‘ (which in itself is based on ‘Love Live! Sunshine!!’). And with Yohane the Parhelion, I think INTI did a great job doing what they do best while also making a simpler action title that just about anyone can pick up.

Hope you don’t mind a bit of singing along for this review.

Fortune Favours the Bold

INTI is quick to drop the players right into the action: with a brief cutscene giving background details on the dungeon, who Yohane is, and that the trapped people are, infact, her friends, you’ll find yourself in control of the stylishly dressed fortune teller in no time. Controlling Yohane feels great, as it always is with INTI’s titles especially as you collect all of her key movement powers, such as wall grappling and double jumping. Though I’ll admit until I got the double jump I could’ve sworn the game was occasionally eating my jump button press, but that never became an issue past the first hour.

Now I called Yohane’s game a ‘casualvania’ and I think it’s the perfect word for it. As I mentioned, once you start progressing through the labyrinth you’ll pick up more and more powers that’ll make your venture easier. The powers you’ll primarily get are from rescuing the rest of the Aqours from their little prisons and there’s a lot of ’em! You’ll start with Lailaps simple paw swipes to dropping huge mechs onto unsuspecting foes and, even better, be able to freeze time once you’ve completed the Aqours’ accompanying quests.

These powers are fairly game changing and go hand-in-hand with the game’s levels. One thing I like about this game compared to INTI’s previous ‘Gal Guardian’ title is that stage design is much more compact, there are less swaths of wasted space, there’s lots of nooks and crannies, and enemy placement isn’t frustrating the vast majority of the time. Heck, Yohane’s game is incredibly forgiving compared to other games within the ‘vania’ genre.

Yohane has two attack modes: her borrowed Aqours power and a crafted weapon you can summon with the right trigger. Almost all her attacks consume Dark Points, but since you can purchase healing and buff items and use them anytime, keeping that meter in check isn’t difficuly. And grinding for monies isn’t a problem, especially if you’re the ‘destroy everything’ kind. There’s even an instant revival item you can find which will fully heal you and also play the game’s main theme ‘Deep Blue’. Moreover, once you’ve unlocked all the accessory slots it’s just a matter of equipping the highest stat gear and crafting a high damage weapon that you can spam. Still, it does make you feel powerful.

Though levels and zones are much tighter this time around, they’re still fairly basic in the grand scheme of things. Each zone is fairly small and can be excavated very quickly, which becomes a bit of a slog once you’re looking to progress the story by finding the remainings zones you haven’t been to yet. There is a neat little ‘random dungeon’ mechanic that each stage has that are essentially large, unmapped rooms that have you running from one end of a zone to another until you reach the end. But there’s no reason to go through these again as they’re very basic in structure and especially once you’ve unlocked the save room nearby, which lets you teleport at a whim to other save stations.

Despite that, I rather enjoyed this more casual experience. There’s a good amount of enemy variation, bosses can be challenging if you come unprepared (or if you’re simply impatient), and unlocking more of the Aqours’ powers and open up other parts of prior stages makes the backtracking far more interesting than it would like to be. The visuals of each level are beautiful as are the sprites and if you’re a Love Live! fan, you’ll love the attention to detail on each character, key frames, and fully voiced lines during its 8-hour or so runtime (the extra padding at the end aside).

Yohane the Parhelion supports 120 frames per second as an option and it works pretty well, but do note that you cannot select this option if you’re display doesn’t support it. But the game doesn’t handle frame fluctuations very well, so be prepared for a brief lag fest if you dare summon the Xbox Game Bar or equivalent machine destroyer.

I love a good challenge every now and then, but I don’t mind being able to coast as I please and feeling powerful to destroy foes to boot. For that, Yohane’s little adventure offers a fun journey through a weird labyrinth with funky, eldritch-looking monsters. An easy recommendation for the 2D action beginner. ∎

YOHANE THE PARHELION -BLAZE in the DEEPBLUE-

Played on

Windows 11 PC

PROS

• Great presentation and music.
• Levels are more compact and flow well between one another.
• Lots of movement options and powers are fun to use, especially once they're upgraded.

CONS

• There's a bit of runtime padding near the end.
• Zones are simplistic to a fault.

8.0 out of 10

GREAT

XboxEra Scoring Policy

Available on

Xbox Series | Xbox One | PlayStation 4 | PlayStation 5 | Switch | Windows PC | Steam

Developer

INTI CREATES

Released on

November 16, 2023

Publisher

INTI CREATES

Rated

Everyone

Price

$29.99 USD

See on the Xbox Store