I thought we had already used up a lifetime's worth of good luck when last year's sunshine 'em up Shin chan: Me and the Professor on Summer Vacation appeared on Steam, but now I'm wondering if this is going to be the season of spiritual sequels to niche Japanese games every year. If it is, Loop8: Summer of Gods arriving on Steam in English is the second game of my new favourite trend..
The source of inspiration this time around is 2000's Gunparade March, which mixed cosy high school life with a looming apocalypse to incredible effect. Just like the PlayStation game that came before it, much of Loop8's world has already succumbed to an overwhelming outside force—this time the dead themselves—with just one small corner of Japan escaping relatively unscathed. Yet even in this quiet little place nobody is who they seem; the rural village's tiny school is somehow filled with gods, people possessed by gods, god slayers, an android, a divine squirrel, and one teenager who until recently lived in space. (That one's you, by the way).
