Zombie games and endless runners, two of the most popular genres in the AppStore. Recently, there’s been more and more titles combining the two, and Cellnavi’s latest release, Ama-Hina, is the newest addition to that list of zombie endless runners.
In Ama-Hina, you’ll be able to play as one of two characters, Hinata, or Amane, each sort of having different abilities. Amane, the sword smith, is unlocked after you reach a distance of 300 meters on the Hell course. The Hell course is unlocked after reaching 300 meters on the Heavy Rain course, and Heavy Rain is unlocked after reaching 500 points in the Urban area. Once you have all of the unlockables, you’ll be able to notice right away what the differences between the two characters are. Your original character, Hinata, punches the zombies without a weapon while the unlockable character, Amane, uses a sword. Amane’s attacks are, of course, a lot stronger than Hinata’s, however, it takes Amane longer to get her sword all the way around to attack the zombies than it takes Amane to throw her fists up. Sacrificing speed for strength has it’s assets, especially when racing the clock on the two distance measured levels. However, getting Amane to successfully attack the zombies in the race levels is a challenge in itself, as you’ll need to tap on the right side of the screen right when the zombie appears in order to give her time to get her sword around and ready. You are also able to jump by tapping on the left side of the screen, which also increases your attack strength.
While you’re running along, you will be able to jump up and attack the lighting fixtures which will drop pick-ups. These pick ups are either health, time, or special attack items. You’re given 3 hit points, and each time pick up you grab will add 20 seconds to your time during the distance levels. The special attack pick ups add 1 special attack to your queue. To pull off a special attack, you just need to drag on the screen from left to right, which unleashes a big ball of fire, destroying everything in it’s path. There are also obstacles which you will need to jump over if you want to keep your speed up. These do not take away from your hit points, but they will slow you down, and cause you to stumble, which could result in being attacked by a zombie. You are able to punch the red barrels, and when they’re hit 3 times, they will ignite and fly forward, exploding when they hit an enemy.
Ama-Hina is a decent endless runner, and it’s gameplay is fun and entertaining. However, unlocking everything in the game shouldn’t take more than 15 or 20 minutes. Thankfully, there are in-game world leader boards through the Cellnavi servers, which do add quite a bit of replay value if you’re a high-score chaser. The graphics are decent, and the character models are done very well, especially the bigger boss type characters. But really, it’s the animations that add loads of entertainment to the game. The attack animations are nice, though having more than 3 attacks with each character would be an awesome addition, but the death animations for the zombies are great, as are the explosions. Seeing blood fly everywhere makes me smile every time.
Cellnavi has made a professional game with Ama-Hina, but it’s lacking quite a bit if they want it to stand out within the endless runner genre. More item pick-ups, like invincibility for a short time, increased attack strength for a short time, things like this, or maybe a shop where you could upgrade your speed and attack strength with in-game points, as well as more unlockables would have gone a very long way in making Ama-Hina stand out. 20 minutes to unlock the two locked levels, and one locked character can kind of leave a sense of “well what now” fairly quickly. Adding GameCenter leader boards would have been nice too so that you could compete with gamers on your friends list, which is generally why a lot of gamers replay endless runners. For $1.99, it’s not a bad purchase, but hopefully that two bucks will go towards adding more content to the game. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a very good start, and is pretty entertaining while being very polished. It just doesn’t have enough content to compete with most endless runners available for the iOS.
Cellnavi has made a professional game with Ama-Hina, but it’s lacking quite a bit if they want it to stand out within the endless runner genre. More item pick-ups, like invincibility for a short time, increased attack strength for a short time, things like this, or maybe a shop where you could upgrade your speed and attack strength with in-game points, as well as more unlockables would have gone a very long way in making Ama-Hina stand out. 20 minutes to unlock the two locked levels, and one locked character can kind of leave a sense of “well what now” fairly quickly. Adding GameCenter leader boards would have been nice too so that you could compete with gamers on your friends list, which is generally why a lot of gamers replay endless runners. For $1.99, it’s not a bad purchase, but hopefully that two bucks will go towards adding more content to the game. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a very good start, and is pretty entertaining while being very polished. It just doesn’t have enough content to compete with most endless runners available for the iOS.
Ama-Hina gets a score of 7 out of 10.
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