Game review: The Way of Sushido

Screenshot from Sushi Striker on Nintendo Switch

Throughout history, wars have been waged over ridiculous things, Mexico's Pastry War with France in 1838; the Pig War, which saw the US and UK squaring off in 1859 and The Stray Dog war between Greece and Bulgaria in 1925.

So a long-waging, bitter war over sushi is not, historically speaking, as goofy a premise as it appears. Or is intended.

The story behind Sushi Striker: The Way of Sushido is purposefully bonkers and the best thing about this puzzle game. You play as an orphan of the Sushi Struggles, a destructive war for control of the nation's sushi supply. The evil side, unfortunately, won and subsequently banned sushi for everyone except themselves. Rebels, known as Sushi Strikers, are rebelling to bring sushi to the masses with the help of magical creatures called sushi sprites.

The story told via cutscenes and bright bold text crawls, is ultra goofy and weirdly funny. It serves as a colourful backdrop to the puzzle game action.

The game itself is a manically paced puzzler that has you gobbling down sushi as fast as you can and then hurling the empty plates at your opponent. The sushi sprites give you various powers and abilities to help you achieve victory.

In front of you are five conveyor belts loaded with various sushi dishes, two lanes for you and your opponent and one shared, and the game consists of swiping dishes that have the same coloured plates together. When you have enough empty plates stacked in front of you, you throw them at your opponent to take down their life bar. Things get frantic fast, and powers and abilities keep things interesting.

There's an RPG levelling up mechanic for your character and your sprites, and new dishes and powers are regularly unlocked. But this is like wasabi, it adds flavour but is hardly essential or of much substance.

For me Sushi Striker wasn't much more than an attractive, well-made iPhone game. The meat of the game is just fast swiping and there's any number of cheap phone games that play similarly at a fraction of the cost.

Game: Sushi Striker: The Way of Sushido
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Rating: PG
Verdict: Snackable gameplay fails to satisfy at its premium price