GAME CLEAR No. 121 -- Akka Arrh

Akka Arrh (2023, Multiplatform)

Developer: Llamasoft (based on 1982 prototype by Atari)
Publisher: Atari
Clear Platform: Xbox Series X
Clear Date: 2/28/23

No Bull

Jeff and Giles from Llamasoft have returned, and they’ve done so soon after I was won over by Tempest 4000. Where Tempest 4000 was another iteration on the concept originally introduced in plain ole Tempest in 1981, Akka Arrh is instead the first true release of the 1982 prototype with the same name. Atari’s current incarnation was wise to trust Llamasoft with the task turning the 41-year-old concept into a finished product. They did an outstanding job.

Akka Arrh borrows its basics from the original prototype. You control a turret in the center of the screen (well, specifically, you control its aiming reticle), and you’re surrounded by one or more polygonal surfaces. You have two weapons: bombs and bullets. Bullets hit enemies directly, bombs do not — instead, they create an explosion on one of the aforementioned surfaces. These explosions kill certain enemies, which in turn create explosions of their own (think Missile Command). By creating these explosion chains, you can wipe out scores of enemies with a single well-placed bomb.

And you should because that’s exactly how you score well in this game. As your kill chain goes up, the number of points you get for each kill goes up. Your chain is reset every time you drop a bomb, though. Critically, the same is not true of bullets, but bullets are in finite supply, while bombs are infinite. Bullets are awarded every time you kill an enemy, so using your bombs to build big kill chains is a great way to ensure you have a stockpile of non-chain-resetting weaponry.

This is what creates the game’s main source of tension: resource management. While bombs can go a long way toward strictly surviving, you will score quite poorly if you abuse them. On the other hand, some enemies can’t be destroyed with bombs at all, or worse, they spawn bullets of their own when hit by one that can only be destroyed with the use of your precious bullets. And while it might seem like you could just lean hard on bullets anyway, you’re still not going to want to — for every hundred that you bring to the end of a level, you get a life back. In the later stages, you will absolutely need them.

You lose your precious lives (represented as “pods” at the base of the turret) when you are either hit by an enemy bullet or an enemy invades your turrets “downstairs.” You will be given a moment to hit a shoulder button to go to the lower level and try to deal with these nuisances before they make off with your pods.

Juggling your kill chains and bullet firing, keeping yourself powered up, eliminating those that would steal your pods: it’s all thrilling. It’s pure fucking gaming.

Maybe I haven’t yet compelled you. Maybe you don’t care about score. Today’s gamer is too sophisticated to be motivated by a notion as archaic as a high score. They want skill trees and level ups and loot! Well that’s too bad because if you want to beat this game, you’re gonna have to learn its systems anyway because the other thing big kill chains award is power-ups. I am fully convinced that without them, some levels are fully impossible. Particularly useful is the “shooty crosshairs,” which causes your reticle to shoot four (free) bullets of its own in each cardinal direction every time you shoot one of yours. This is extremely helpful in clearing the clutter of harder stages when things start to get crazy. Other power-ups are also great boons, but they are temporary. One is a forcefield that protects you from harm for a bit, another automatically kills everything that appears for a few seconds. But those shooty crosshairs stay with you until you get hit. Be sure to care for those shooty crosshairs.

What I hope I’ve convinced you of is that Akka Arrh is a cool, intense action game that requires focus and prudence. The icing on the cake, though, is Llamasoft’s signature psychedelic audiovisual experience. It’s got a similar strobey, neon look as past Llamasoft titles, but the musicality of the game is not quite like anything else I’ve ever played. Enemies produce musical or percussive tones whenever they spawn and whenever they die. They also spawn in a steady cadence. The result is that kill chains are musical. When you master a level, your reward is a performance I can only sort of liken to Electroplankton. If high scores or the sheer satisfaction of clearing a level are not enough for you, perhaps the symphony of success might be.

At the very least, you’ll be playing a little different from anything else you’ve played. I’ve harped on that perhaps to the point of exhaustion on this blog, but it really is something to be. Sure as hell makes these posts longer.

Oh and on a personal note: I was #1 in the world at this game on Xbox for a shining moment. That’s pretty fun.