izigame.me

Just to get two need-to-know things out of the way up front. First, this game is more sequel than remake or remaster. Based on some of the media and the way the early game plays out, you'd be forgiven for being unsure, but things detour from the familiar pretty early on! Second, forming my biggest complaint about the game: The story is designed to be played single-player. This somewhat baffling decision means you can only play with two players in a separate "free mode" that unlocks on completing the game, accumulating a certain number of coins, or by entering an oldschool cheat code on the title screen (]press Left four times, Right four times, then Left followed by Right four times - I think you might need to have Free Mode selected when doing this.). This removes the cutscenes however, and secondary characters are limited to those you've unlocked by playing the game, which requires a minimum of two playthroughs as there are two teammates who are mutually exclusive and chosen randomly on a given run. I understand the story would have had to be handled differently to accommodate a second player, but considering how much of it is powered by deus ex machina anyway, would that have been hard?
All that said, overall, I enjoyed this! This game is a sequel to Pocky & Rocky from the SNES, which itself was (I think) the third game in the previously Japan-only KiKi KaiKai series of top-down arcade shooters. This got a sequel of its own on the SNES that this game seems to disregard.
There have been some mechanics changes. There's a third colored power-up type now, and the characters each have unique shot types based on what power-ups they've gathered. The old charge-up deflection attack is sort of out, replaced with new moves that are unlocked a little later in the game, along with alternate fire. It still remains quite tricky, though unlimited continues remain in play! Unlike the first game, you'll unlock a few alternative playable characters, though as mentioned, there are two that can only be encountered on separate playthroughs, determined randomly.
I truly love what they've done with the graphics here. The original was cute, but instead of just keeping the existing assets as-is or lazily slopping down 3D models and calling it a day, they've given the scenery and creatures some really loving attention and personality. A lot of enemies from the first game return but with much more expressive animations and clearer, more readable designs. It's delightfully cute and shows a lot of love from the art team. The game still takes artistic guidance from old Hyakki Yagyō paintings in a way that would make Shigeru Mizuki (GeGeGe no Kitarō) proud.
The remastered music didn't fare as well. I appreciate the reuse of some good original melodies, but they've only been modified by some slight instrumentation changes that mostly just make it sound a little bit "thin" and easy to lose over the sound effects. It doesn't sound actively bad, but at its best it's about as good as the SNES predecessor.
There's a little more story on offer than previous installments, but it's surprisingly just a bit convoluted for its very short duration, and either not told very clearly or maybe partially lost in translation. It's not inherently complex, just a bit chopped up by the introduction of time-travel elements spliced onto the original story in a way that's not particularly deep or interesting. This isn't at all a dealbreaker in my opinion. Story's really not the focus here.
You'll be confused if you haven't played the SNES original (and possibly even if you have), but Reshrined is absolutely worth a go if you have a fondness for it, and I think it's adequately playable if you haven't, provided you don't mind the strict eight-directional shooting mechanics and arguably high-ish difficulty.