Sushi Striker: The Way of Sushido turns a conveyor belt into a weapon. Nintendo released the action-puzzle game for the Nintendo 3DS and Nintendo Switch on June 8, 2018, and it asks players to match colored plates fast enough to bury an opponent under them.
It sounds like a joke. It works.
Trailer, via Nintendo of America.
Musashi and the Ban on Sushi
The game takes place in a world without fish, where the Republic and the Empire have long fought over control of sushi in a war called the Sushi Struggles. Sushi comes from creatures known as sushi sprites, and the people who fight alongside them by throwing the plates used to serve it are sushi strikers.
The Empire wins, and forbids sushi inside the Republic. Musashi, an orphan whose gender the player sets, is out gathering food for the children at the orphanage where they grew up. Musashi meets a sushi striker named Franklin and his partner sprite Ara-o. Franklin offers sushi. Musashi hesitates, because their father died in the Sushi Struggles, then tries it, and resolves to spread the word about sushi to everyone.
That plan collapses almost at once. Imperial general Kodiak captures Franklin and Ara-o for interrogation. A voice leads Musashi to a nearby shrine, and the voice turns out to belong to Jinrai, a sushi sprite in hiding who the Empire badly wants. Eating the shrine’s sushi binds Musashi to Jinrai, and the two set out to rescue Franklin.
Along the way Musashi finds the Sushi Liberation Front, a resistance opposing the Empire, and joins it.
Three Conveyor Belts, One Stack of Plates
Battles are one-on-one, and both sides face each other across conveyor belts of sushi built to look like sushi trains. The player matches as many plates of the same color as possible, Musashi eats the sushi off them, and the plates fly at the opponent and cut their health. The opponent attacks the same way.
Each side gets three conveyor belts of its own, plus one belt between them that both can use. The more matches you make, the taller the stack and the harder it hits. Online multiplayer is in.
The structure is simple, and the pace is not. Matching under pressure against a CPU opponent is where the game lives or dies, and the controls are the part that wobbles. The 3DS and Switch versions do not play the same, and the touch and button options ask for different kinds of speed.
Sushi Striker: The Way of Sushido drew generally positive reviews, with praise for its gameplay, its anime-inspired art style and its story, and criticism for its length and its controls.
What the Game Gets Right
The art style and the story carry more weight than a plate-matching game has any right to expect. The Sushi Struggles gives the fighting a reason, and the sushi sprites give it a face. Musashi’s turn from hungry orphan to sushi striker is thin, but it is enough to make the next battle matter.
The roster of things working in its favor:
- Matches that stack into taller, stronger attacks
- Three personal conveyor belts plus one shared belt
- Online multiplayer
- An anime-inspired look
- A story about lifting a ban, not just winning a match
The problems are just as plain. The game runs long, and the controls do not always keep up with the speed the matching demands. Those two complaints are not small. In a game built on fast matching, a control scheme that fights the player is a real cost.
Where the 7.4 Comes From
The published critical score sits at 7.4 out of 10 across five outlets, and that number is about right. Sushi Striker: The Way of Sushido is a strange idea executed with confidence, and it earns its place as one of the more memorable Nintendo releases of 2018. It is not a game that will convert anyone who does not already like the sound of throwing plates at a general.
Here is the running order of what matters:
| Element | What it does | Weight |
|---|---|---|
| Plate matching | Builds the stack and the attack | High |
| Conveyor belts | Three each, one shared | High |
| Story | Musashi, Franklin, Jinrai, the SLF | Medium |
| Art style | Anime-inspired | Medium |
| Length | Runs long | Negative |
| Controls | Do not always keep pace | Negative |
The story and the art are the reasons to stay. The controls are the reason some players will put it down. That trade is the whole game in one sentence.
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