Sonokuni Review — Hype Moment

Sonokuni is a fast-paced, high-energy action game in the vein of Hotline Miami, challenging players with difficult one-hit-kill encounters that require quick reflexes to survive. Unique for its incredible soundtrack and colorful presentation, Sonokuni is sure to impress you with everything the game has to offer. However, players might find the game a bit short on replayability, with a rather thin story and some rough difficulty that can either be an exciting challenge to overcome or a frustrating roadblock.

In my years of gaming journalism, Sonokuni might be the title with the most unique origins I’ve had the pleasure of reviewing yet.

It was dreamed up by the minds of DON YASA CREW, a hip-hop group based in Japan who recently dipped their toes into game development—a passion they discovered during Japan’s COVID lockdowns.

It is no secret that a game can be made or broken by its soundtrack; I struggle to imagine playing Final Fantasy 7 without the music of Nobuo Uematsu and Mitsuto Suzuki. You can imagine, then, that a game developed by a music group like DON YASA CREW is going to have an incredible soundtrack, and you’d be absolutely right.

Sonokuni is a game defined by its music; without the pounding, hype-filled hip-hop beat and the gorgeous rhythm of Japanese rapping, Sonokuni simply would not be what it is—a beautifully chaotic game driven by the artistic vision of its creators, a vision formed around the style and feel of DON YASA CREW’s music.

This artistic vision is also reflected through the game’s visuals—a neon, punky, and supremely colorful look at a fictional Japanese city. The inhabitants of said city vary in grotesquely beautiful, alcohol-induced mutations, firmly cementing Sonokuni in the world of biopunk. Not to sound pretentious, but the game’s visual style also feels deeply rooted in DON YASA CREW’s music, feeling like a visual representation of the music constantly beating in your ears. This is a game I would highly recommend you play with headphones if that wasn’t already clear.

Mechanically, Sonokuni is pretty straightforward. A level consists of moving through several rooms, each one full of various types of bad guys who will either die or kill you in one hit. Your moveset is simple, with the ability to strike (which also reflects very specific attacks), block projectiles, or slow down time to make it easier to navigate. Each mechanic has its own strengths or weaknesses, with blocking, for example, locking you in place and creating vulnerability to melee attacks, forcing you to think very carefully about how you approach each encounter.

The game is something of a bullet hell, with constant problems coming at you so fast that I often found myself dying without knowing exactly what was going on.

The Hotline Miami comparison is impossible not to acknowledge, with the gameplay being almost a carbon copy of its inspiration, albeit with the inclusion of a few more moves on the player’s end and different enemy behaviors. Like Hotline Miami, the gameplay is going to be something you either love for the challenge or loathe for the difficulty, which seems to err on the harder side. Enemies hit fast, and I found myself not really sure of what certain enemies did, even after multiple encounters. Finding yourself locked in one area over and over again can turn into a frustrating process, though one that is easier to deal with thanks to the presence of the game’s soundtrack.

When Sonokuni works, though, it just works. Striding through a room and pulling off a perfect clear, slashing down your foes to the beat of fast-paced Japanese rap, can seriously make you feel like a badass assassin. These hype moments feel like what the game was made for, and it’s hard for me to say if the inherent difficulty adds to them with a feeling of accomplishment or diminishes the feeling by making them all the more rare in favor of death loops.

Regardless, it’s safe to say that my favorite part of Sonokuni was not mastering the gameplay. Instead, I found myself driven by the moments where I could simply appreciate the hype feeling the game gives you, bobbing my head to the music and admiring how our protagonist runs on all fours between rooms.

The game’s story is told through conversations between the protagonist Takeru and various NPCs, and the story told is one of defiance, liberation, and the moral implications of violence. It’s good enough for what it is; engaging with the game’s story elements was never my favorite part of the game, but characters are given just enough room to develop for you to come to appreciate them. Takeru, of course, steals the show, mostly because you get to watch her run around on all fours like some kind of creature between fights. Maybe that charmed me a little more than it will you.

All in all, Sonokuni is a game that will, if nothing else, charm you. The gameplay itself is something you will either love or hate, but the overwhelming sense of style and the game’s incredible music give Sonokuni an identity that cannot be ignored. While you might not find yourself playing through the game more than once, you’ll certainly appreciate Sonokuni for the time you spend with it.

TryHardGuides was provided a PC review code for Sonokuni. Find more detailed looks at popular and upcoming titles on our Game Reviews page! Sonokuni is available on Steam.