Thanks to James Montagna for the review code

Title: Dodge Club Party
System: Wii U eShop
Price: $1.99
Release date: 04/14/2016

The main game/story

Outside of an overly exaggerated plot in the manual, there’s practically nothing to talk about in terms of the story. The main objective of the game is to simply dodge the two hazards for as long as possible, knocking the other contestants into the hazards to become the last one standing! While this game is meant mostly for multiplayer, there IS indeed a single player endurance mode where you focus on getting a higher score than being the last one standing. Essentially, this is an expanded version of the Dodge Club game from Dot Arcade.

Graphics

Outside of the artwork that’s displayed when booting up the game, the entire game is shown in a small frame with square pixels, each object being shown in different colors. Despite the incredible simplicity, its still surprisingly a night and day difference compared to the Dot Arcade original, even if it’s not much of a difference outside of the circular colors becoming solid square pixels.

Music and Sound

Outside of a few well-composed chiptune themes and some crash sound effects, there’s not much else to talk about here. Moving on…

Gameplay

As mentioned earlier, Dodge Club Party’s main goal revolves around being the last one standing, which is done by avoiding the constantly moving border and fireball, staying alive for as long as possible in single player, while trying to mess up your opponents to become the last one standing in multiplayer, where the game truly shines. To be totally honest, that’s literally the entire game, with no extra modes or any sort of bonuses to speak of. Heck, there isn’t even a way to save high-scores! Regardless, I did have a surprisingly good time with Dodge Club Party, as when playing by myself it led to being a moderately entertaining high-score chaser, but when I invited a friend over it become much more amusing and frantic. I can only imagine how epic matches would play out with five players! (If I had more than one friend over at a time)

Conclusion

In conclusion, Dodge Club Party is entirely focused on simplicity, and that’s OK for the most part. It manages to successfully be an entertaining party game while also having a decently engaging single player practice mode for those wanting to get a higher score, even if the game doesn’t save it by default. It’s only $1.99, so for a game as frantic as this in multiplayer, it’s a steal! If you have friends over frequently, especially more than one, I can easily see this becoming an incredibly addicting and fun party game, and well worth the $2. Even if you aren’t much of a party-goer and just like to play by yourself, I still think it’s worth the purchase simply because of how fun it is to get new high scores with such a simple yet addicting concept. If only online multiplayer of some kind was possible, as then this game would be practically perfect! Nevertheless, I give Dodge Club Party an 8 out of 10, and strongly encourage fans of multiplayer titles and high-score chasers alike to pick this title up. You won’t break the bank doing so which means there’s hardly anything to lose and lots of fun to gain!