‘PopSlinger’ Shakes Up Side-Scrolling

Shake It Up Beat’em-ups are undergoing a revival in recent years. Side-scrolling action games may never again reach the heights of their arcade heyday, but a steady number of releases shows there’s still life in the genre. As the target demographic for these games ages, however, can brawlers connect with a new audience? Funky Can Creative’s PopSlinger aims to find out. To be fair, PopSlinger isn’t a straight-up brawler. The titular weapon is a soda-powered pistol wielded by Ria, a would-be magical girl. Ria is partnered with the mysterious and cranky Gin, who bestowed the PopSlinger on Ria to fight back against a monstrous takeover of Ria’s home town. 

The appropriate reaction to becoming a magical girl.

Pop Off Blasting through each infested ‘Corazone’ level requires precision shooting to unlock the PopSlinger’s potential. This is where the core combat loop comes in. Each of the slimy monsters Ria guns down is color-coded. Gin will unlock temporary offensive & defensive upgrades for Ria, depending on any four kills of the same color. The bosses of each area are exempt from this mechanic but drop different’ flavors’ of PopSlinger for Ria to use. As the starter, Orange provides a single shot. Others like Strawberry or Cola fire off a Contra-style spread shot or beam. Each level ends with a character action game-style score based on performance. Pop Slangin’ A high score doesn’t come easily, as you might imagine. It’s difficult to line up a matching selection of enem…