Ratalaika Games and Shinyden have been on fire recently, releasing a slew of retro releases made modern once again. Retro Revengers continues this streak only this time fans are given an original product.
Playing as five characters each with their own abilities, this action platformer is easily inspired by classics such as Mega Man and Castlevania. The goal is to reach the stage ending boss, killing minions and avoiding hazards along the way, and eventually take down the dreaded Triple-A demon overlord. This quest wears humor on its sleeve, often presenting fourth wall breaking retro game references and poking fun at AAA game development.
The gimmick of this run-and-gun linear platformer comes from the five playable characters and their approach to combat and traversal. For example, one character uses a yo-yo to attack as an as a grapple hook. Another attacks with ranged bubbles and has floaty jumps. The cat character can jump high and walk on ceilings. The creepy old man chucks knives. Each character also has access to a charged attack. Warm it up and each one produces a powerful blast, much like Mega Man X’s Mega Buster charged attack.
As the game opens, each character must navigate their specific level, essentially acting as one tutorial. However, right when you think you are about to kill the final boss, the game throws the player back to the first stage and must repeat them in order. While this artificially increases the play time by another twenty minutes, the player can switch to any character at any time by pressing the shoulder buttons. Unfortunately, this doesn’t make the game any more fun since the meat of each stage remains the same. In fact, the only thing new with the mandatory replaying of each stage is the difficulty. For the most part, the player just must contend with more enemies on screen at once which only makes the game more tedious instead of fun. Then, in Mega Man-style, all the bosses much be bested a second time.
Besides the basic and somewhat boring, repeating stage designs, there are many other little issues that hold back the fun factor. For example, the text boxes scroll too slowly. Controlling each character is stiff and chunky. The collectable coins literally do nothing. There are hidden treasures to collect in each stage, but they do not reward the player in any way. Each character must climb ladders exclusively by entering the climb animation from the bottom; you cannot jump then grab the ladder. There are just a lot of these small, missing details that make this campaign feel like a chore at times.
Each stage is also brief, which plays to its advantage. Since the level design isn’t the best and forcibly repeats, brevity in each area is welcomed. In fact, speed runners might want to take note as a running timer is tallied after each level. First time play throughs will take less than an hour, but veterans should be able to blow through this campaign in fifteen minutes.
With the modern gaming environment loaded with stupid amounts of roguelites and simulators, playing a new, retro action platformer is refreshing. Unfortunately, this is a new retro experience that is average at best. However, Achievement hunters should take note because it doesn’t take much to unlock all of them. In fact, you don’t even need to finish the game to earn all 1,000 gamerscore. Even though this $9.99 digital download isn’t the new Shovel Knight we sorely desire, I’d still very much play this than any of the 19 roguelike titles released this week.
Not As Good As: Ufouria the Saga 2
Also Try: the Cyber Citizen Shockman re-releases
Wait For It: Gimmick 2
By: Zachary Gasiorowski, Editor in Chief myGamer.com
Twitter: @ZackGaz
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