Originally released on the 16-bit Sega Genesis thanks to a successful Kickstart campaign, Coffee Crisis has now been ported to PS4 and Nintendo Switch. Playing as a couple of coffee shoppe owners/brewers, the ridiculous story of fighting off invading aliens with coffee related attacks is going for humor but falls flat. Besides fighting aliens, the player will also need to defeat monsters and elder people with walkers for some reason. Nothing makes sense to a fault and the whole experience is one WTF moment.
Coffee Crisis is a 2-player co-op arcade beat’em up designed as a homage to 90s brawlers that offers a few minutes of fun before the repetition and annoying gameplay take center stage. Although there are two different playable characters, the attack range of each barista is virtually nonexistent, forcing players to be right on top of enemies to make contact. This alone makes combat a chore, the main focus of the game, but is amplified by the annoying enemy behavior. Melee attackers like to swarm the player but then ranged attackers can send damaging attacks from across the screen (sometimes even from off screen), often making it impossible to escape. The amount of bad guys in each stage is also very inconsistent. Some stages will only have a few enemies and take 30 seconds to complete. Other stages take ten minutes and force a pack of fifteen enemies at the player at one time. Even on the easy difficulty, this is a rough game especially when playing solo. There is the ability to warm up a super attack by holding down the attack button but the limited range makes this a move that will never be used. Jump kicking also has shoddy hit detection.
With so many better brawlers out there, it is difficult to recommend Coffee Crisis. Make no mistake, Mega Cat deserves recognition for releasing a brand new old game, especially on original hardware, but the gameplay is not as cool as the novelty.
Also available on Sega Genesis, PC, and Nintendo Switch.
SCORE: 5/10
Also Try: Castle Crashers
Don’t Forget About: Capcom Beat’em Up Bundle
Play It Instead: the Double Dragon & Kunio Retro Brawler Bundle
By: Zachary Gasiorowski, Editor in Chief myGamer.com
Twitter: @ZackGaz
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