This is one of the cross-platform games I had seen (and played) at the previous Tokyo Games Show back in September 2017. Another shoot’em up? Well yes, and no. It has a bunch of distinctive features: in Pawarumi you don’t just shoot at stuff, you just at colored stuff. And color matters. You switch between red, blue and green weapons and to be most effective you need to use the right color against the right type of enemy. Red enemies get a lot more damage when hit with a green weapon, for example, and the least amount of damage if you hit them with their own color. However hitting red with red has one advantage: it recharges your Super. So you can really quickly guess that Pawarumi involves a lot of trade-offs to make very quickly in the middle of the action.

Design-wise, Pawarumi looks a little strange, taking inspiration from the Aztec world, so while you may or may not like it, at least it won’t be bothered by the “generic sprite” problem that’s been plaguing most shoot’em up since forever. Finally, it also happens to be made by the Frenchmen from Manufacture 43 in Bordeaux, which is unusual in a genre dominated by Japanese companies!

While I was in the beta, I decided to wait for the final release to give it a good go and make sure I play the game as fully finished. You will probably get a review on BoilingSteam pretty soon. In the meantime, if you prefer to go ahead and get it without further wait, you can find it on Steam.