Oh no! Here comes Tokio!

Coming soon to a Nintendo Switch or PS4 near you, whether you like it or not! It's the Taito arcade title Tokio, a decidedly lackluster shoot 'em up from 1986. Tokio plays like a halfway point between Capcom's 1942 and Nichibutsu's Terra Cresta, with your biplane flying over the Japanese cityscape, blasting formations of stealth planes and dropping bombs on ground targets. Blasting red ships releases them from the enemy fleets and, once captured, adds them to your own.

Tokio is... playable? I guess? Slow and frustrating and unsatisfying, but functional. However, with the dozens and dozens (and dozens) of shoot 'em ups available on the Switch, sometimes for less than Tokio's retail price of eight dollars, it's hard to recommend this flaccid mid-shelf release. May I recommend Sophstar instead? Or Radiant Silvergun, or Exerion, or... anything other than Tokio? There are so many shooters on the Switch that aren't Tokio that there's no point in settling for less.

Thanks as always to Time Extension for the scoop. Don't buy Tokio.