Long time, no type. Game of the year coming up, just one more game to try first to judge its' potential challenge, and that game is Gears Tactics, which is why, despite having a PS5, I dusted off my Xbone to get games pass, which I was fully prepared to pay the full monthly cost for, but in a pleasant twist, got 3 months for £1, I'm not sure if it's £1 total or £1 per month, for three months, but at that cost I'm happy to just pay and not worry about it (until I forget to unsubscribe when the time is up, like I just did with BT (British Telecom) sport and now have to pay for another month).
So there I was, ready to sit down and crack on with Gears Tactics, but then I thought, having just finished Cyberpunk, a long game, that I needed to whet my pallet with a shorter game first, which bought me to the question of what, so I considered the PS plus games I had, or any PS5 game I could buy, until a light flicked on in my head, that I now have games pass for 3 months, and hey, there's bound to be something interesting to play here, it's not just going to be Jump Jet Rex anymore, like when I got game pass the first time around. Turns out, there's quite a few interesting games on there (hence this idea for a series on Game Pass) and the one that stood out at the time was the heavily promoted 2020 remake of Battletoads, so why not give it a whirl, I can't think of anything else bad that came out of 2020.
Firstly, I never plaid any of the Battletoads games when I was a youngster, so have no nostalgic attachment, I might have played a bit of one on Rare Replay, but If I did, I don't remember it (must've been great then). I have, however, after years of neglect, finally come round to really appreciating brawlers, I enjoyed the likes of Streets of rage, Golden axe, Alien storm (the list could go on) in my formative gaming years, but there wasn't a lot around then, and as I grew older, I started to look down on the genre, going back playing these older titles no longer appealed to me, and the likes of Castle Crashers, which took off for a while there in the late 00's (Is that nauhgties now or two thousands, I'm not sure if there is a common consensus yet, and it's been 10 years!), didn't appeal to me. Then, some time late, I played Foul Play (granted, about 5 years after it came out, but that's PS Plus for you). This game reignited my passion for this genre, helped last year by Streets of Rage 4 and Mother Russia Bleeds, which were both fantastic, which lead me to this point, downloading Battletoads and eagerly anticipating it, something I couldn't have imagined just a few years ago.
To my delight, the brawling was pretty good, not a large move set for each character, but an interesting array of enemies that could be arranged in different ways, alongside environmental challenges that made some encounters quite challenging, especially as you got towards the late game where many of the fights turned it to almost as much of a puzzle as it was about the fighting.
So, that was good, but not everything was. There were many different types of game modes involved, from platforming, to a twin stick shooter and a god awful level where you had to fix your ship with via mini games in a certain amount of time when I couldn't even tell what the order was. Asside from that individual nightmare, there was a wide variety of success or failure in the different game play segments, for instance, the platforming was far too easy compared to the rest of the game, adversely, the twin stick space shooter was way harder than anything else in the game. The most notable sections though, are the once infamous speed bike sections from the original games. These were much maligned for being almost impossible back when the original game came out (supposedly), so here they have flipped the view to behind, and play similar to the crash Bandicoot polar bear/ tiger riding sections. As the first of these kicked off, it seemed really exciting, enough of a challenge to not make it too easy, but possible to get in a good rhythm, these sections played really well, the problem is they were way too long, and I sure don't like things that go on way too long (e.g. the last of us part 2 was at least twice as long as it needed to be, if not more). Seemingly never ending sections, that started well but became so stale by the time I was half way through a level that I was hoping for death (In real life, not the game (I would have have to played a large section over again!)).
Seems like many people don't like the art direction or story as it doesn't fit with 'classic' Battletoads, but as a non BT (not British Telecom) fan, I didn't have a problem with it, and let's be honest, there aren't that many people who have a positive affinity for the original ga.mes, so what does it matter what they think anyway. The story was presented as a passable kids cartoon, it helped the story flow in a different way to most games, though the dialogue is hardly Shakespearean
Overall, the game was good, the brawling sections were certainly good, with the others a mixed bag, I don't want to do a score review, So I'll just say wether it would be worth playing if you already have game pass, and for this I would say Yes, it's a Game Pass, it has ticked the box to deserve to be played in this context, I'm not sure it would be worth paying the full price (depending on what it is), but as it's available on a pre-paid subscription then yes.
You may also like: Streets of Rage 4
What's next? spoiler alert, I already played yet another game before I started Gears Tactics, which I have now started, and so far so good, though honestly, unlikely to challenge for the Prestigious Andy Pearsall Game of the year.
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