Sumioni: Demon Arts

Sumi-e is a type of traditional Japanese monochromatic painting with its roots in religion, meditation and consummate skill. Sumi means ink and Oni means demon and you are the titular hero, the ink demon Agura, who has been summoned to help restore order after the evil Seimei sold his soul to usurp Michisada’s political seat. The influences of Hell itself are throwing Japan rapidly into chaos so Tengan, Michisada’s loyal friend, sacrificed himself to un-seal Agura. He is tasked to fight alongside his two Inkgod companions – Yomihi and Shidou – to oust the evil forces from power.

You have to help Sumioni take care of bad guys, traverse trap-laden levels and take down bosses. To do this you have the ability to create platforms by painting them directly on to the Vita screen with your right hand. Your left hand is used to run, jump, use your Naginata sword and to enter Draw Mode. This mode pauses the game at which point you can draw lines or press down on one spot to create ink blots.

Any lines instantly burst into flames while the ink blots create focused lightning in one area. Draw Mode is also where you can call in the afore-mentioned Inkgods Yomihi, a flashy Phoenix, and Shidou, a proud Earth God. Each can be summoned once in each stage and act as temporary familiars who can offer some protection and do lots of damage.

It’s a nice touch, when summoning Inkgods, that you need to trace a shape shown to you on screen. However, you get a damage bonus if you trace it correctly and at the right speed. This is a nice homage to the controlled, skilful brush-strokes of sumi-e. You can just rush it but it’s more rewarding if you take your time.

The levels are most definitely formulaic but what changes is the difficulty. The controls aren’t tight enough for the gameplay to be based solely around combat, mainly due to the fact there is no block/parry moves, but in some regards it’s actually a shmup-action-platformer – hear me out. As you can’t really react to traps and less-so bosses it becomes necessary to learn the level in order to traverse it without expending too much of your Ink gauge which drains as you use the brush features but replenishes by killing enemies. You also need to learn the bosses’ attack patterns in order to beat them without taking too much damage or time. This is where it feels shmupy and it’s also where the scoring system comes in to play.

You get ranked at the end of each level out of three stars and the rank is determined by two factors; damage taken and time spent. Do it fast without getting hurt you get three stars which, on some levels really isn’t too easy and you’ll find yourself replaying some levels numerous times. Somehow though I always wanted to replay them. Some of the controls can get irksome, like being attacked from behind or automatically triggering your Inkgod by accident when you intended to draw fire to the enemies on the ground. But, for whatever reason these weren’t enough to detract from the game.

The levels are based around a tree structure – one that is surprisingly rare and nice to see nowadays. Each story line branches at certain points and the path you take depends on how you perform on a certain level. The paths progress in difficulty but, by doing the easier ones first, you increase your life and ink gauge which levels the playing field. You can create multiple saves at decisive points to do each path efficiently or play through the whole game for every path on one save file for the Gold Trophy. The game is short but there are a good few endings so the choice is yours.

Sumioni’s art style is something I really enjoyed. It’s an aesthetic choice that lends the game colour and charm and the looseness of the brush-stroke outlined characters give it a carefree yet almost evocative vibe. It’s a really difficult art style to do well but the inky blacks contrasting against the rice-paper, soft watercolour colours makes it feel unique and not over-serious. Somehow the repetition of doing levels to get them right and do them perfectly reminds me of the practice of sumi-e painting, an art form I’m sure the creators are very familiar with.