I’m a big fan of the Japanese doujin (indie) scene’s work and have been ever since I first came across the rather wonderful Recettear by EasyGameStation and its equally wonderful localisation by Carpe Fulgur. Much like the Western indie scene, the Japanese doujin scene is the home of the type of games that men in suits decide “won’t provide a good ROI or conversion ratio” or whatever shit they talk about in boardrooms these days.

Unlike the Western indie scene, however, which has a strong tendency to err on the side of “art games” — works that make use of gaming conventions in the service of telling a story or delivering some sort of message to the audience — the Japanese doujin scene has a strong tendency to make very “pure” gaming experiences that, while they sometimes have strong narratives, are primarily concerned with being fun to play and feeling like classic console and arcade titles from the PS1 and Dreamcast eras.

Croixleur Sigma by Souvenir Circ is one such example. I’ve had the pleasure of following Croixleur’s development since it was first released as a rather simplistic, albeit enjoyable, arena-based brawler a good few years ago now, and over time it’s blossomed into a genuinely excellent arcade-style game with a surprising amount of depth. With its recent PlayStation 4 release by publisher Playism, we finally have what is probably the definitive version of Croixleur, and it’s well worth your time and £11.

As previously mentioned, Croixleur is an arena-based brawler specifically designed to channel Devil May Cry’s Bloody Palace mode, in which the protagonist fights their way through increasingly challenging waves of enemies with a mind to completing the challenge 1) as quickly as possible 2) without dying and 3) scoring as many points as possible. In Croixleur’s case, you take on the role of one of four charming young weapon-wielding ladies and hack and slash your way through various types of monsters, hopefully before the 15-minute timer or your two arcade-style continues run out.

Croixleur initially seems disappointingly simple. Tapping the attack button unleashes a basic combo, but this isn’t altered by moving directions or changing weapons or anything. You can jump and do the same combo, or you can dash.

You can probably make it through the game just mashing the attack button, but it would be very tedious. Thankfully, that isn’t all there is to Croixleur, not by a long shot. No, Croixleur is very much based around being as fluid and elegant as possible; every action is possible to “cancel” into another — in other words, while one animation is going off, you can hit the button combination to do something else and that thing happen a lot sooner than it would have if you’d let the animation finish and set it off from a standing start. Effective fighting in Croixleur, then, becomes a combination of hitting weak enemies with your basic attack, dashing to other enemies to get into position, and using the unique special attacks each of the collectible weapons offer in order to best deal with the situations in which you find yourself. There’s also a “smart bomb”-like ability that has a limited number of uses; this is particularly useful against the stronger, larger enemies that less frequently show up.

There are only three basic enemy types in Croixleur: a goblin thing, a goblin wizard thing and a flying eyeball bat thing. While you might think this would cause the game to lack variety, things are mixed up a bit by a couple of palette variations of each: brown ones are weakest, blue ones take more hits and are more aggressive, red ones are strongest and most dangerous. The advantage of there only being three basic types of enemy is that you can learn their attack patterns and “tells” in their animations and be able to deftly avoid their attacks in order to keep up your own assault; in order to get the best scores — and indeed to survive, full stop — you’ll need to avoid taking damage as much as possible.

Alongside the basic three enemies are a few larger types, too: there’s a big monster thing, a gold knight, a silver knight and a fuck-off massive dragon as the final boss. Having significantly more HP — and usually being accompanied by a horde of the basic enemies — means that you have to deal with these powerful foes is somewhat different ways, zipping in and chipping away at their health before they can wind up a powerful attack, or using a special move to pelt them with magic from afar.

Further variation to the game is added through the weapons that you collect as you progress. You can equip up to four of these when you start a new game, effectively allowing you to customise your heroine’s choice of special moves according to how you like to play. There are also a variety of entertaining visual accessories you can purchase with the coins you collect by defeating enemies, and these all have various benefits to gameplay. Plus they look fun.

Croixleur is not a complicated or long game, but it’s surprising how much depth it has. It’s very much an arcade game, and wouldn’t feel out of place on the Dreamcast, with its large, Sega-style countdown timer, ludicrous scores to attain and wonderfully fluid, 60fps action. Plus there’s a ton of unlockable stuff to uncover as well as the ever-present challenge of besting your own high scores — and those of your friends, too, of course.

Give it a try!