I've never seen nor heard anything about the Toonami anime Ninja Kamui since it was announced, but I've been keeping an eye out for the game adaptation for a minute, for one reason: it's being developed by G.rev, the studio behind the likes of Senko no Ronde, Under Defeat, Border Down and many other arcade-style games, almost all of which have been some variety of STG. (They most recently developed the STG portions of the ADV/STG hybrid Yurukill.)
The initial announcement didn't give anything away in terms of genre or format, so my presumption was that it'd be some sort of Senkoro reskin—their studio's been on the ropes for a minute and their last few works have been heavily derivative of existing games, and they don't have much else to scavenge from that'd make sense for any sort of humanoid character game—but based on what little info's available on these just-published eShop listings, it looks like they're making a conventional side-scrolling action game with some nebulous amount of first-person gimmickry. I don't doubt their ability to make an interesting side-scroller, and the mention of online leaderboards makes me hopeful that they're trying to maintain an arcade-esque focus and haven't been browbeaten into gormless metroidvania territory, but I gotta say, seeing the studio responsible for all the prettiest polygonal STG (not a high bar, mind) reduced to a game that looks the way this one does is kinda deflating.
If you're wondering why some random genre-specialist Japanese studio is even working on an American cartoon game, you can probably chalk that up to the expat JP publisher, Rainmaker Productions: their previous project was the M2-developed Assault Suits Valken reissue/retranslation, and I'm guessing one of the dorks at the publisher simply wanted to throw G.rev a bone.
G.rev gave a little extra info, too:
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their overall direction for the game was "''00s-era arcade ninja action game", and their chosen genre designation is "2D-style side-scrolling shageki ACT"—they point out that the nuance behind using "shageki" (which translates to "marksmanship") rather than "shooting" should become clear to anyone who plays the game
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the BGM's by Keishi Yonao, who last worked with G.rev on Strania and whose other works include Mad Stalker and the Asuka 120% series
also worth noting: the show hasn't aired in Japan, so the license is going to have virtually no pull over there...
It's a 2D sidescroller, with a bit of a Rolling Thunder vibe
ROLLING THUNDER???
THAT'S your go-to reference????????
BRUH
that and "looks like it could be pretty fun for Kamui fans" which is the exact sort of non-statement you'd expect from someone who played it for two minutes at a trade show and wasn't being paid enough to formulate a real opinion
Yonao Yonaoing all over this one

