Playing with Kaiju No. 8
Blog Andrew Joseph 30 Aug , 2025 0
In the 8th World of Kings, the Titanic, the otherworldly beast has been a threat in Japan: to some extent, not only is there a military organization – the Japanese Anti-Kaju Defense Forces (JAKDF) – set to deal with it, but also can clean up work in regular cleaning staff, then cut into the trucks often get eliminated and then knock them down once they fall.
The protagonist Kafka Hibino dreams of becoming a JAKDF official, but at the beginning of the series, he is cleaning up his work and hopes that when the work is to be done, he won't be assigned to the intestines…for obvious reasons. However, not long after, he – Season 1 spoiler alert – The members of JAKDF are all dealing with the fact that he is somehow given/cursed by Kaiju himself and designated by Kaiju 8's power.
Fashionable action, stupid humor and bad ass characters all come together to make a whole bunch of fun, and frankly, it's a great feed for video games. Why? Well, in terms of action, the series focuses on lineup-based combat around strange and sinister enemy-sized enemies, and battles are done by exposing the core of each creature (i.e. weaknesses) and bringing it to life. Pair it with highly personalized characters who have a range of expertise in different weapons and combat styles, and you are waiting for a video game.
Enter Akatsuki game and enter Game No. 8. This mobile-based free-steer RPG (PC-followed) is perfect for modern Japanese live service mobile games, Gacha rolls with characters and weapons, and many different currencies and hand-crafted materials that allow you to upgrade characters, moves, weapons, weapons and more. It's a game where you have check rewards every day, limited time events and grind materials so you can enhance your character and take on the next challenge.
Whether it depends on you, but there is no doubt that the team has put a lot of effort into this title. Akatsuki Games has been working in the No. 8 game for more than two years – before the auto-comic started airing, the team had about 200 people.
The result is a game with a great demo, thanks to the well-established 3D character model, a good sense of scale and super sleek battle animation. The core game loop is also convincing, allowing you to control a battle based on a four-person group that moves quickly and provides plenty of room for strategic depth.
Kaiju Game No. 8 also has a lot of content. Not only does it have a primitive story to play (in season 2 of the anime, now airing), with an impressive sound performance (in Japanese), but there are other modes that highlight the iconic moments of the manga/animation story, telling the bystander stories of the main characters, and so on. It even has side-scroll combat mini games.
Let's look at some details.
What is the story?
In Kaiju No. 8 of the competition, the size door is open in the sky and Kaiju threats are pouring out. Is this JAKDF's job? Yes, but with the help of Clozer (which is a rather awkward “zero limit closing order” if you're curious), a special organization that takes charge of sealing the Gates. However, the plot twist is that Cliffrey's captain is Sagan Shinomiya – one of the few brand new characters – and fans' preference for Kikoru Shinomiya's sister.
This setting allows for endless stream of gameplay when you fight through Kaiju from a specific gate, eventually ending in boss battles and closing the gate, then turning to another one. However, this is an interesting premise, as the gate itself is associated with different dimensions, which means that the iconic Kaiju that has been neutralized in Kaiju 8's world can still appear, allowing the game to sneak into battles in manga/animation. For example, my practice culminates in the battle with the legendary Kaiju 2 alternative version.
Another important point is that while manga/animation is set entirely in Japan, these doors are open worldwide so the game can roam around. You can imagine how the title of on-site service takes advantage of traveling around the world.
Apart from Sagan and several other brand new characters, the No. 8 race packs up all the series stages you expect, from the captain of the Third Division Mina Ashiro (and her Tiger Bakko) and her deputy captain Soshiro Hoshina, Soshiro Hoshina, and to the first division (and Otaku slacker) and otaku slacker nararumi and kafka kafka and the Captain. As you would expect, everyone has a signature weapon and fighting style, from Hoshina's double sword to Sagan's Shield, who she uses like a blunt weapon.
Kafka is perhaps the most interesting because he is essentially two characters. When the finale was triggered in the battle, all the other fighters unleashed a flashy attack, but Kafka's final result turned him into No. 8 Kaiju in the rest of the encounter, giving him a completely different move.
Squad!
The combat system allows you to select a quarter squad before each mission, while the order in which they are placed creates two pairs of “battle partners” that determine who performs subsequent attacks when the Kaiju core is exposed. (More information about this in seconds)
The battle is based on turns, the order of movement that will be displayed at the bottom of the screen. As you would expect, characters have a wide variety of options, ranging from single and multi-target strikes to buffs and debuffs, but there are several critical systems to turn on strategies. First of all, your gathering will have a shared SP pool (basically mana). Normal attacks can restore PIP, and use combat skills to exhaust PIP. This approach means you need to do tactics in managing resources to use the most powerful technology of your character.
Most importantly, the system that reveals the core of the enemy – a key part of the battle in manga/animation. Enemies have discreet shields (called plates) that reduce their damage, so the main priority of any combat encounter is the most effective way to break them. Some boards can be destroyed by any attack, while others require a specific type of attack. You may need to use elemental attacks, or even more specifically, an attack that takes advantage of one of the five elements in the game (fire, ice, wind, lightning, and water). Obviously, different characters have different types of attacks, so it is key to make sure your team has the affinity you need to meet the battle you are going to participate in.
Breaking the enemy boards is crucial because once you destroy them all, the Kaiju in the core of the problem is exposed, triggering an automatic follow-up attack from the attacking character's companion and forcing the enemy to jump over the turns, crashing it downwards toward the turn sequence at the bottom of the screen. Just like in the upcoming attack or better yet, it can release the final form of the final, which is really satisfyingly knocking down kaiju.
Speaking of Ultimates, each character has a scale where the meter fills in during combat (it significantly improves it with subsequent attacks), and as you'd expect, these are some of the most gorgeous, strongest attacks in the game. The ultimate core is perfect for ending with its core exposure and can be triggered at any time, thus surpassing the upcoming attack sequence. One thing to remember is that the mission is made up of several battle encounters, one after another (as the ninjas are sprinting as the squad of the next battle), your SP pool and final charges take place from battle to battle, so if the final encounter is very difficult, you can prepare for it.
The overall combat is fast and smooth, allowing each character to show off his personal style while teaming up. Usually you are fighting small kaijus, but the game's attacks do make you quarrel with towering monsters that manga/animation is famous for, and the camera is set to a low point that can really help sell the scale of the encounter.
Enhance and rise
The battle in Game 8 is a good strategic foundation, but like most RPGs, your character needs to be constantly upgraded to keep up with the opponents you will face next. There are some overwhelming systems that can make your character stronger, and they are almost all centered on material drops.
Just to give you a quick idea, you use the Defense Force manual (with several rarities in it) as well as the credit “enhance” (i.e. upgrade) your character. These all fall from playing the game and are essentially costable XP. Initially, your character is maximized at level 20, but the level of hats can be expanded, thereby increasing the relevant characters and improving the challenge level of story quests and opening up higher difficulty training options. (By the way, training is the way you get materials to improve your personal skills, but is affected by the endurance system.)
The role can also be “up”. This requires you to have twice as many roles and other resources as well as rewards for you. Most importantly, you can enhance your character’s weapons and personal skills. There is a lot to track and it feels like you need to have a nice pool of competitive characters to swap rosters when specific plate disassembly capabilities are needed, which means interacting with a ton of different collections.
New weapons and characters are obtained through the game's Gacha volume and are rare with galaxies. In most cases you will get three star weapons, and it remains to be seen how many rolls the player can generate and how the price of the GACHA system will be used for paid players. But, to be sure – the pool of characters and weapons is very large, with few rarest drips, so if you're looking for something specific, it can be a long process.
Despite the many free mobile game designs that are stuck, Kaiju Game 8 Moment Game has a lot to do, with clever core combat power, sleek animations and impressive visuals. And, it takes the story very seriously and reveres the original material explicitly, so this adaptation is definitely worth a look at the fans of the series. Kaiju 8 match will start on August 31.
Cam Shea visited Tokyo's Akatsuki game as a guest. He is a former staff member of IGN and is now a freelance writer and Beer Geek.