One of the growth genres in animation recently has been that of anime. Although always popular in its homeland, many titles have now caught on here in the west, mainly due to streaming sites, with titles such as Spy x Family, Naruto, as well as the huge success of the Netflix live action series of One Piece.

Not only is That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime, another anime you can add to that list, but it’s also the latest anime title to have a video game release as well.

It starts off on somewhat of a grim note, with the death of a young man. And as the title suggests, he does indeed come back as a blue blob of slime. He’s quite a useful slime ball however, as he has the power to consume his enemies. He also has the ability to change his appearance into human form, and go by the name of Rimiru.

Being quite powerful, he gains a loyal following who join him, and they create a small town. This is the birth of the Jura Tempest Federation, which you play a part in its growth throughout the game, with minimal sim tasks, like building certain buildings.

The main game sees you off fighting battles, on a 2D plane, where you can only visit one area at a time, which has a set number of screens for you to explore. It all soon becomes very routine, as you take your small band with you to defeat the enemies, some of whom you fight one too many times.

Like many of the other anime games before it, the gaming mechanics are simply there to support the narrative, of which there is a fair bit of. If you’re a fan of the anime there’s plenty to enjoy here. Going in cold however, as we did, and although it held our interest initially, it soon gets rather deep into the lore, and we quickly found ourselves skipping waves and waves of cut scenes.

There’s certain more of a game here than the recent Spy X Anya: Operation Memories game, which is essentially a mini-games title, but there just isn’t enough of each mechanic to hold your attention.

Take the battles for instance, which we found were for the most part all too easy, with only the occasional big boss giving us a modicum of trouble. And although the special moves and powerful combos were fun, albeit all too easy to pull off, it can get very busy on screen to the point where you’re not quite sure what you’re doing. It also doesn’t help that some of the enemies could half slip of the screen a lot of the time, making it even more difficult to see if you were hitting them or not.

It does look faithful to the anime however, which should please its fans, and there is something quietly satisfying about many aspects of the game. But if you’re not a die hard fan of the anime, there’s probably not quite enough here to recommend diving into, with other similar games providing greater mechanics all round.

Still, with its colourful and bizarre characters, and intriguing narrative, the game probably works best as a recommendation for the anime itself more than anything, which is no bad thing. And to be fair, being a slime certainly had its moments.