FORZA POLPO

PS1 meets SNES in an airy J-pop platformer

Developer/publisher Monte Gallo

Format PC

Origin Italy

Release TBA

Forza Polpo is, you may be startled to read, a post-apocalyptic game. Set in 1990s Japan following the invention of an energy source that ripped the planet asunder, it casts you as a lone survivor trapped in their bedroom, exploring through the eyes of a guntoting delivery drone. So far, so 2020 – but if this is the apocalypse, it’s the apocalypse at play. The environments are blissful, antigravity toyboxes of girders, traffic cones, trees and police cars, floating against hot afternoon skies like crockery flipped from a tablecloth by an inept magician. The palette is a giddy tumult of pastel pinks and greens, equal parts vaporwave and Studio Ghibli.

There are no human beings to encounter here, but there is an immense amount of warmth and bustle. Children cheer off-screen as you scoop up collectibles. Enemies, ranging from angry-eyebrowed mecha birds to pop-up turrets, exist as much for ambience as threat, drifting towards you or coughing up missiles from afar. Kiosk machines dispense energy pills along with bursts of fizzing J-pop. There are beachballs to knock into automated scoring nets and parasols to bounce on. Even your bullets sound joyful – they tinkle apart on impact like pieces of candy.