Uppers Final Impresisons

Well, I'm finally done with Uppers. If you thought EV was biased towards certain characters, you haven't seen anything. Counting the story chapters and the extra missions -survival arenas and boss rushes stages- the game has 62 stages divided in 9 chapters. Out of those 62 stages, you only play 16 with other characters than the main duo, the remaining characters get two stages for themselves.

On the story itself, the characters only show on the chapters (every chapter introduces two characters) where they are introduced before dropping out from the plot entirely. Chapter 7, the final one in the story is only one stage and in what is becoming a trend with Takaki, is a battle between the main duo members. That stage and the fact the two dudes are dressed in red and blue, makes me think Takaki is a Double Dragon fan since is basically a recreation of the final stage of that game.

The stage does lack the "oomph" of the original tho.

Once you finish the game a new episode opens where you're thrown into survival arenas. It follows the basic structure than regular survival arenas with a small difference you only have to defeat the required amount of enemies not enemy waves as is used everywhere else. Since there's a plot, you have to pick predeterminated chars the first time but you're a free to use whatever you want afterwards.

The stages aren't too difficult aside of some gimmicky enemies that have a lot of super armor and hit like a truck. But you can simply mash strong attack to win, one of the arenas was in the second demo actually. And is exactly the same.

The final two arenas are pretty gimmicky. In the first one you have to beat 60 foes, that include all the remaining playable characters while in the last one, you have to beat 120 enemies at least but you can go for as long as you can. The only way to end the stage is to be defeated after beating 120 enemies. While the first 60 are the same than the previous one (waves of five, one boss and four mook), after that mark the game simply throws at you the other characters again and again until you met the quota. Dai is included this time. I imagine she's there regardless if you buy her or not.I dropped the fight by the 125 dude. It was just too repetitive by then

By beating those arenas you unlock another chapter that is by far the most fun I had with the game. You're figthing the bosses again, but this time is a 2 vs 2 battle, with your partner actuallly figthting with you at the same time. Is pretty damn fun. If the game would've had more of that stages it would've been a lot better. No idea why they made those stages the absolute last thing you can unlock.

These stages also have a plot and they end with a fight against Dai-although being two against one, she can't really do much against you- If you bought Dai, an extra mission is added where it simply flips the roles around, Dai against the main duo.

After that there's nothing more to do on the game besides doing every mission on hard mode and completing requests.

If the move shop you unlock does something more than adding more attacks to your combo, is not something obvious. Because I got all the "moves" and didn't notice a difference on my characters. As for the stats, every character can get their strength and health upgraded four times, but you have to reach the final chapter to be able to buy all the upgrades.

For some reason.

I finally realized why every character HAS to play the same: is the only way to allow the player to complete the requests with any character.

Once again, the thing that makes the game stand out is the thing that drags it down, they really should've ditched the cheerleader system.

Speaking of, the final girl you unlock is the daughter of one of the playable characters. Is a little weird to have her cheering at him during the stages. You'll be hearing oto-san a lot.

Uppers is definitely a weird beast, likely if Takaki would've had someone to rein him in, it would've been a much better product.