Hot Tentacle Shooter – Review

We’ve touched on it before, but there are a number of cheap games out there on PlayStation Network which are designed to grant fast and easy platinum trophies. Hot Tentacles Shooter takes the concept a few steps further, not many but a few.

Step one: actual gameplay inspired by classic vertical scrolling shoot ’em ups such as Xevious or Raiden. Although, it’s oddly simple and easy. It has the vibe of a “my first videogame” for hobbyist developers. But it does have gameplay, so it’s one step up from Button Clicking Simulator 6 or whatever.

There are also progressive stages, a handful of enemy types and unlockable outfits for your avatar. Of course, your avatar is the last surviving member of an all-female group of zero-suit-looking space rangers. The others being captured by … tentacles aliens.

So now we have a plot, another small step and tentacles? Not sure I can grant it a step for that, but our trophy farm shovelware is looking pretty fleshed out.

Tentacles, captive women in skin-tight suits? If you’ve seen enough hentai you – you’ll be disappointed. The title may suggest some Hot Tentacles but it comes down to a “tentacle layer” added to images of slightly uncomfortable-looking rangers. They’re not exactly lewd. The reward for beating a stage is a version of this art without the tentacles. It feels like there’s a version of this game where the tentacles temporarily censor the art. It’s still not really one to play around the family, but it could have been much worse/better. There is a fair variety in the girls you rescue and they each have some poorly translated speech text to give them personality.

As far as cheap Platinum trophy games go, Hot Tentacles Shooter is astoundingly excellent. However, compared to pretty-much anything else, it’s severely lacking and a stretch to call it a game. But then you’re only wasting £2.49