Play Azur Lane and dive into a side-scrolling shooter experience with battleships and beauties.

Manage your fleet, create new ships, and lead them to battle as gorgeous anime ladies.

Use air support, powerful naval guns, and torpedoes to take down foes while dodging their attacks.

Azur Lane is absurdly beautiful. After playing it for hours, you can’t help but wonder what you got yourself into. After all, it’s a game wherein you control battleships derived from history reimagined as cute and beautiful anime girls. World War II battleships like HMS Hood, HMS Prince of Wales, the fearsome Bismarck, and even USS Missouri are in the game. Fan service and historical aspects aside, the game is a wonderfully-crafted modern side-scrolling shooter with outstanding graphics and anime-inspired art style. With that said, is it something you would want to play? Let’s check out what it has to offer.

Azur Lane starts off with a rather long tutorial starting with a boss fight between British battleships and the Bismarck and Prinz Eugen. Though it is a simple side-scrolling shooter, the game has a few intricacies and gameplay elements that make it stand out. The controls are relatively simple: you control three battleships/girls at the same time, moving around as one unit with the virtual joystick on the bottom left corner of the screen. Meanwhile, the right side gives you access to special attacks, like air support, naval gun artillery, and torpedoes. Note that when using naval gun artillery, you have to manually aim which can be a little tricky at first but is manageable once you get used to it.

Progression in Azur Lane is stage-based. Each level is made up of square tiles, and you have to navigate around each tile to face enemies. Be careful though since some tiles may hold surprises, like enemy ships lying in ambush. Stages are composed of several battles with a climactic fight against a boss at the end. The earlier levels are rather easy to deal with, but things will get a lot harder as you progress further.

Azur Lane has gameplay elements of a typical freemium game, including microtransactions and gacha. When creating a ship, you can’t exactly choose which class or model. Instead, your choices are limited to the type of ship (heavy, special, light, etc). Moreover, building ships take time, and but can be sped up with an item. The game provides 15 free instant build items, but after these are depleted, you’ll be on your own. Apart from which, you will also be in charge of upgrading their equipment from naval guns to torpedoes.

To address the elephant in the room, yes, Azur Lane is chock-full of fanservice. Most girls have rather exaggerated physical features, while some are just way too cute. Some are dressed in a manner that makes the game rated 16. Nevertheless, the art style is fantastic, and we can safely say the production value is off the roof. Some characters are fully-voiced in Japanese as well. When you get to the cutscenes and battle sequences, the framerates are relatively stable and visual issues are nonexistent.

Overall, Azur Lane is a decent side-scrolling title that tells an absurd yet amusing tale of battleship beauties. It’s easy to learn and fun to play, and despite the freemium elements, you will be treated to countless hours of gameplay once you get into it. Though the fanservice elements may put you off, the gameplay is absolutely fun, especially if you are into old-school side-scrolling shooters.