Prepare For War. Prepare For… Pinball?
HIGH Adorable adventure. Clever minigames as combat. Robot dog!!!
LOW A bit too much backtracking for an experience so short.
WTF Did I just dress up like a pinball machine?
Major Daaia has every reason to seek vengeance.
Her parents, as well as millions of other humans, were slaughtered by the evil Rolars. She’s been raised since infancy to become a perfect killing machine and she’ll be in control of humankind’s greatest weapon, the Shikon-X — a fighter capable of modular transformation, with weapons and shields powerful enough to take the fight to the Rolar forces.
On her first mission, she receives an encrypted communication. While she can’t translate it, something tells her that she must investigate… And then she plays some pinball.
OK, Shikon-X is a bizarre little title. The opening crawl parodies Star Wars, then immediately interrupts itself to worry if the developers might be sued. Our protagonist, Daaia, is more focused on playing pinball and talking to her robot dog than she is about the war raging throughout the galaxy. Between moments of absurdist humor, the narrative takes a dark turn for a few minutes to deal with genocide and child warriors. It’s tonally all over the place, but that’s part of the charm.
The plot moves briskly, but it doesn’t really have a choice, as the entire campaign can be completed in two hours with two different endings. Except for a minor interlude involving a lecherous officer trying to spy on a woman taking a shower (which is, sadly, required by the plot) Shikon-X is harmless popcorn-movie-style fun.
The irreverence doesn’t stop with the narrative. Some of Daaia’s missions are stylized versions of old-school brick-breaking action, like one would have seen in ’80s arcades. Think classics like Breakout or Arkanoid, although the twist is that she’s using her ship to protect a wall, rather than destroying it.
Another mission plays exactly like a top-down arcade shooter along the lines of another ’80s classic, Galaga.
When our hero has to take on a part-time job (it makes sense in context… sort of) the player enters a minigame analogous what could be found on an old-school LCD watch, and an incredibly important plot point revolves around getting a high score in pinball.
All of the missions control well and are a blast to play, though skillful handling of the shield ship takes a little bit of finesse, as it doesn’t quite control the way one would expect. During these Breakout-inspired missions, the ship circles around the items to be defended. Pushing left and right mostly moves the ship as expected, but pushing left when the ship is at the bottom of the circle continues to move it left from the ship’s POV. For some reason that threw me every single time, but I was eventually able to compensate.
Between combat encounters, Shikon-X plays like any standard point-and-click adventure game, but without the point-and-click. As Daaia navigates around the screen, items with a purpose will automatically receive a caption, identifying it (such as “coffee maker”) and eliminating the pixel-hunt frustration commonly found in point-and-clicks. These objects are important to the plot or solve puzzles, and they’re all activated by pressing X. It’s honestly a bit refreshing to use such a streamlined interface, and to know in no uncertain terms what can and can’t be used while playing.
There are also simple puzzles that follow the internal logic of Shikon-X‘s universe, even if that logic is skewed by normal standards. For instance, I had to construct something by dropping blueprints on an easel, triggering another character to stop what he was doing and build it for me. It was a bit silly, but it made sense in the moment. I was only stuck once during my playthrough because I didn’t realize a maze I was in required me to find the correct person to ask for directions.
Several puzzles can be solved by revisiting past locations to see if anything has changed, or if someone new has shown up to talk to. In fact, this relates to my only complaint about Shikon-X — there’s a bit too much backtracking for an adventure that only takes a couple of hours to finish.
However, this is just a minor quibble. Even with the backtracking, Daaia doesn’t outstay her welcome. In fact, I wish there had been more content. By the time credits rolled, I wasn’t ready to leave this crazy universe, and I wanted to know what happened next. Shikon-X leaves itself wide open for a sequel and actually begs players to tell their friends about it so the developers can fund their next project. I hope they succeed — I can’t wait for more!
Shikon-X Astro Defense Force is delightful. People may find it brief, but the brevity is more than made up for by ample charm and a clear love of the source material it parodies.
Rating: 8 out of 10
Disclosures: This game is developed by Kindermann Corp. and published by Treasure Boy. It is currently available on PC and Switch. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PC. Approximately 2 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. There are no multiplayer modes.
Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated T and contains Drug Reference, Fantasy Violence, Mild Language, Suggestive Themes. The game features mild drug references (primarily alcohol), and there is a scene depicting lecherous behavior concentrated on a female crew member in the shower.
Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available.
Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game offers subtitles. The subtitles cannot be altered and/or resized. All dialogue is text-based, and all sound cues are accompanied by a corresponding visual cue. The game is fully accessible.
Remappable Controls: No, this game’s controls are not remappable.
He juggles this passion for gaming with his most important job, being a husband and dad.Fortunately, his boys are growing up as gamers (with decidedly more skill, much to his annoyance) and he has a very understanding spouse.
He hangs out on Twitter sometimes as @JPSJeffOrt, Facebook FAR less frequently, and while he misses performing all the interviews from his former online life, he’s much more relaxed now!
- Axis Football 2026 - October 28, 2025
- Dungeons & Dragons Neverwinter Nights 2: Enhanced Edition Review - September 16, 2025
- MACROSS: Shooting Insight Review - May 13, 2025