SONOKUNI - Hip-Hop Fueled Biopunk Beatdown

• DEVELOPER: DON YASA CREW
• PUBLISHER: Kakehashi Games
• PLATFORMS: PC, Nintendo Switch
• GENRE: Action
• RELEASE DATE: March 24, 2025
• STARTING PRICE: 14,79 €
• REVIEWED VERSION: PC

SONOKUNI mixes Hotline Miami's instant-death action with cyberpunk style and Japanese flavor. Made by DON YASA CREW, seven hip-hop artists who turned game developers during lockdown, it's both a love letter to their music and a brutally hard action game. You play as Takeru, a solo assassin taking on a evil biotech empire. The game's world is crazy, violent, and full of wild legends. With blazing-fast gameplay and loud, intense style, this isn't for players who want something relaxing.

Precision in Chaos

At its core, SONOKUNI is a top-down action game where every hit is fatal, both for you and your enemies. Takeru wields a katana, a parry ability, and a time-slowing mechanic, navigating rooms packed with grotesque, genetically mutated foes. Unlike Hotline Miami’s gunplay, combat here is intimate and melee-focused, with spinning kicks and sword slashes replacing bullets. The parry is a standout feature: time it right, and you’ll deflect projectiles or counter enemy strikes, turning defense into offense in a split second.

The game’s structure is straightforward but relentless. You enter a stage, clear rooms of enemies to unlock the next, and repeat until you face a boss. Each room is a micro-puzzle of aggression, enemies have distinct patterns (archers prep shots, sprinters charge, acid-spitters lunge), and you must prioritize, dodge, and strike with precision. Death sends you back to the room’s start, not the stage’s, making retries quick but punishing. A “Speedrun” mode, introduced at launch, amps up the challenge for masochists, flipping stages into mirrored layouts.

Beating a room feels like solving a fast, dangerous puzzle. Pulling off perfect blocks, dodges, and kills while DON YASA CREW’s music pumps in the background is incredibly satisfying. But the game has problems. At the start, it doesn’t explain much. You’re suddenly dealing with too many things at once, enemies attacking, bullets flying, and split-second timing. Around halfway through, the difficulty jumps sharply. Some rooms feel unfair, forcing you to die over and over just to learn what to do.

There’s an “Easy” mode to help, but the game still requires quick reflexes and a lot of patience – not everyone will enjoy that. The biggest issue? Repetition. Many rooms full of enemies can just be skipped. Fighting through them feels pointless since they don’t give rewards or tie into the main story. I wish clearing these areas actually mattered, but right now, they’re just optional challenges with no real payoff.

Myth Meets Morality

The game mixes biopunk dystopia with Japanese myths. The story isn’t told through long cutscenes, instead, you learn about the world through short talks with characters and mysterious videos between levels. These show a dark, neon world where it’s hard to tell right from wrong. Takeru struggles with all the killing she has to do. Every enemy she defeats is another tough choice to protect her people. The developers say they based this on real Japanese stories about hard sacrifices. While the story doesn’t explain everything about its world, it does a great job making Takeru’s mission feel like a sad, never-ending battle.

Characters don’t talk much, but when they do, every word matters. Most of the story comes through the game’s dark mood and Takeru’s actions rather than long conversations. The boss fights, especially the final one, connect to the game’s big ideas about power and sacrifice. However, players who want deep stories with lots of character growth might be disappointed. SONOKUNI focuses more on creating a strong mood than explaining everything. The unclear ending might frustrate some some of you who want definite answers.

The music is the true highlight. DON YASA CREW created 50 powerful hip-hop tracks that drive the action. The deep bass and raw energy match perfectly with every sword swing and block, making you feel like you’re in an action-packed music video. This isn’t just background music, it’s the soul of the game. The excellent sound design even won awards like BitSummit’s Excellence in Sound prize. While the game doesn’t have voice acting, this actually lets the music and combat sounds stand out more.

Ending thoughts

Despite its many good points, the game’s difficulty is uneven. Once you learn the mechanics and how to use all the combat tools, it gets easier. But it can be very frustrating if you keep dying at the same level over and over. SONOKUNI is a fast, intense game that throws you into the action with loud hip-hop and a bold style. It’s not perfect: the story is thin, and it may not have much replay value. But when it clicks, it’s a unique indie game with a strong attitude. If you love games like Hotline Miami, stylish action, or Japanese underground style, you should try it. Otherwise, it might not be worth the risk.

Review copy provided by the publisher

3.8