Tamiku Review (Nintendo Switch)

Review code provided with many thanks to Ratalaika Games

Tamiku Loves Balloons

Tamiku is a simple pick up and play arcade game inspired by the old arcade games of the 80s. You play as the cute little alien Tamiku, the game opens by informing you that Tamiku loves balloons. So much so that he ended up destroying his home planet! Wait… what? So Tamiku is kind of an evil cute alien? The only way to satisfy his balloon popping lust is to head to other planets and pop their balloons, of course, the hosts of these plants won’t let Tamiku achieve his goal that easily.

LadiesGamers Tamiku — I think Tamiku is the bad guy

Gameplay Like the Arcades

The game plays like a 2D platformer. You play single-screen levels where your goal is to simply pop all of the balloons in the level. Blue ones will pop instantly when you touch them but the red ones will require you to mash a face button to make them burst. When you pop all the balloons all the enemies on the screen turn into red balloons while Tamiku does a little dance. Weird and strangely terrifying. Whilst you’re running around causing all this balloon popping panic there is a large variety of enemies to stop you from achieving your destructive goal. Some will follow a pattern, some will chase you and some hazards will attack from afar so you need to keep moving and make sure your reflexes are sharp. Tamiku can’t attack, only move and jump and a single touch from an enemy or projectile will make it lose a life. Three lives and the game is over! Though you can gain more lives by accumulating a high enough score. If you do get a Game Over you can restart the level you’re playing on from the start but your high score will reset to zero.

Inspired by the Old Days

The graphics are retro-inspired from the arcade days of old. Considering Tamiku may be a bad guy he sure looks cute. There are eight level variants of various themes and environments. Some of which seem to take a little inspiration from other retro games. One level randomly dropped bombs which gave me heavy vibes from Bomberman and another had a nasty ghost chase me round the level very reminiscent of Pac Man.

The Arcade Flow

I ended up enjoying my time with Tamiku. The game, while difficult, has an entertaining flow to it. There was something rewarding about learning the enemy patterns and being on the edge of your seat maneuvering between platforms while avoiding a vampire throwing fireballs at you. Yeah, that happens in this game. If this was an arcade game in my local chip shop when I was younger I would have happily put 20p into it. You play through eight levels with the occasional bonus level which plays a little like Balloon Fight. Tamiku floats about tied to some balloons while you collect balloons floating up from the bottom of the screen. After finishing the first eight levels you replay the same eight levels again only a little harder this time.

Unfortunately, after this is over the game abruptly ends. An amusing ending plays and the game is over. This kinda surprised me as I was happy to continue cycling through the levels. Feels like it could have easily gone through a few more cycles at least before possibly hitting a Kill Screen (where the game abruptly freezes and ends due to a program error. Famously seen in old 80s arcade games). The main appeal to replaying the game to me was trying to obtain as high a score as possible before losing all my lives so I could get up that leaderboard. This flow certainly won’t appeal to every gamer but if you are looking for something simple to enjoy in small bursts Tamiku will definitely scratch that itch.

A Burst of Fun

If you like your old-style arcade games from the ’80s Tamiku is well worth picking up. Simple but challenging gameplay and a crazy cute character with a weird fetish for popping balloons makes this an arcade game worth sinking some time into. Though I will say I won’t be looking at balloons the same way for a while.

Final Verdict: I like it