I've finally had some time to play a fair bit of Uppers. The game is overall pretty mediocre, unfortunately, mainly due to how simple and easy it is. It also feels pretty repetitive, even for a beat-em-up, but it's possible that things might get more varied with more play time.
Uppers' biggest flaw is that it's just too simple. You play on small, linear stages and beat up generic thugs- usually just a few at a time. The hook here is that there are girls watching and they request various moves or finishers during the fights. Doing these will give you a power-up/bonus so the goal is to beat up enemies in flashy ways.
There were a number of videos, pre-release, showing various moves the characters could do, which made me think that the game play was being improved from the demos, but a lot of these are context-sensitive and you simply have to be standing in a certain spot to do them, so for the most part it feels like you're just mashing buttons against fairly braindead enemies and then watching the finishers play out automatically. Some of these are pretty cool- you can dunk enemies into basketball hoops, kick them into electric signs, or even stomp them right through the floor, but this only works on specific stages and in specific areas. If you're playing with a partner character, you can switch in and out to keep combos going (and get health back), plus do dual-character finishing attacks.
One thing I should have done sooner was to change the difficulty. The game defaults to easy and it is far, far too easy, to the point that the enemies almost feel like training dummies. Setting the difficulty to hard helps a bit, but even on stages with bosses and thugs together, it still felt a bit too easy. They at least
try to attack you on hard, though.
You're also forced to use the characters that the game wants you to on all the story levels. Even though more characters open up (and Daidouji is available as DLC), you can't play as them until you've cleared a stage once already.
The graphics have a very clean, colorful look and the game looks great on the Vita screen, along with a pretty stable, high framerate. Menus are easy to navigate and the load times are quick enough overall.
Since this is a game produced by Kenichiro Takaki, you can expect plenty of perversion, despite playing as (mainly) male characters. This comes from the girls cheering you on. You'll get "panty roulette" sequences for more power-ups, and you might even fall head first into a girl's crotch.
....
Yeah. It's Takaki, all right!
I'm hoping that more will open up with more play time and that the difficulty will ramp up, but right now is this game is the clear low-end of all the Takaki-produced action games. it doesn't have the speed, mobs of enemies, and crazy air combos that Senran Kagura has and it doesn't have the depth or enemy variety that Valkyrie Drive has either.
