Thanks to Ratalaika Games for the review code
Title: Retro Revengers
System: Xbox Series X
Price: $9.99
Release Date: 07/22/2024
Story
in this action platformer, you take control of five characters sucked into a video game, as they explore a retro inspired world to take out an evil dark lord and try to get back home!
The dialogue in this game is just outright insane, but not in a bad way! Tons of humor and funnies abound here, with so many references to the point I started to feel the game was overdoing it, until the game itself acknowledged as such and just rolled with it. The fact the dialogue scenes are all skippable helps in this case, too. Still, a pretty funny script with great localization work done to keep the retro references.
Presentation
Retro Revengers goes for the 8-bit style, and being a game worked on by Happymeal, it sure nails the visual style, with lots of color and great animations. Not much else to comment on here, since it just looks sharp and is otherwise a typical retro throwback that doesn’t try to perfectly imitate the retro hardware.
The sound is where I can give more props than normal to the usual chiptune OSTs we hear from NES inspired games, since this whole OST was done by a veteran from the era, and it sounds incredibly catchy! That’s right, former Capcom’s Manami Matsumae did the OST here, and a lot of it is just incredible stuff. Maybe not the absolute best you’ll ever hear from a chiptune, but still very strong, memorable stuff that sticks in your head long after you’re done with this game. From a great boss theme, catchy stage tunes, and a silly cutscene songs, there’s lots of great songs to be heard here, and the soundtrack is easily one of the best aspects of this game.
Gameplay
Retro Revengers is an action platformer, tasking the player to control one of five characters through stages meant to be cleared with their special technique. From an old man with throwing knives and a fire shield, a kid with a yo-yo, a dragon thing with bombs and homing shots, a panda man that has an unusually strong hadouken-like move, to what I swear is literally the infamous Cat Mario with a short range attack but impressive jumping abilities, they all have their own fun little introductory stages that don’t last too long, but helps to show them off and really make them shine. If I had to compare this to a specific game, i’d say Ghouls n Ghosts due to how the secret chests in this game work and the second loop gimmick it throws at you.
All the stages end in a boss fight, and depending on the difficulty, they can go down in no time at or require a lot of patience to avoid getting hit. Still, I found certain characters to have a far better time taking out bosses than others, with the dragon guy in particular having a crazy powerful homing shot that utterly obliterated the final boss so quickly that I caused a softlock on his final form by killing it before it could spawn. Uh-oh. Still, these fights come with great music and higher difficulties definitely increase the tension, but that still doesn’t mean you can’t cheese some fights with certain characters.
For that first loop of the game though, you’re stuck with the character the stage is themed after, and I found them to all fit nicely in those respective stages. You never feel as if a particular stage is miserable due to the character you’re forced to use, as they all have their own merits to them. Once you clear the first five levels however, you’re tasked with doing them once again Ghosts n Goblins style, but this time with the ability to freely switch between the five characters on the fly, thanks to the LB/RB buttons. They all also get an extra charge level to their attacks, allowing them to unleash even stronger techniques when fully powered up, leading to a lot more fun here. The stages get slightly remixed and a lot tougher, but still maintain the fun factor until the very end of the short adventure.
Yeah, even with the second loop, Retro Revengers is short. Just around an hour the first time you play, if you’re anything like me. I still had a lot of fun during the hour though, and it was after my first playthrough that I decided to bump it up from Easy to the higher difficulties to see what would change, and well, you do have less health and lives to work from as you make the game more challenging, and you’ll realize those coins you’ve been collecting throughout your adventure are solely used for continuing upon game over. Luckily even on the second hardest difficulty each party member has their own HP bar, so you can rotate them out during those second loop stages to give yourself a little extra time. Pits also go from sending you back to a safe platform to instantly killing you on higher difficulties, so you gotta be more careful there, too.
The true, Arcade-like challenge though comes from the Insane difficulty option. One life, no health bar. Do every stage perfectly without getting hit once and everything being cranked to the match, and you’ll be able to master this game. I barely could even make it to a boss room on this level, but I was very happy to see the game’s difficulty was so customizable that any of my fears about the difficulty being too easy to break was unfounded. That still doesn’t mean those certain characters won’t save your life by using them in a pinch, though. Really just go in, play at whatever difficulty you want and have a good ol time.
In terms of performance on XSX, everything looked sharp and ran rock solid with no complaints. Not really anything else to say here, really. I will say that unusually the achievements for this game are incredibly easy, to the point that you can just stumble upon all of them by the end of the first loop of the game. The Steam version has way more achievements tied to all the difficulties and secrets, so I don’t know why the console versions stick with only the lowest effort ones. That doesn’t mean you can’t go after all the secrets and play on all the difficulties anyway, and honestly, you still should if the game clicks with you like I did me. Ultimately this was a very fun platformer that is the definition of short and sweet even if it didn’t blow my mind.
Conclusion
Ultimately, Retro Revengers was a solid time that serves as a fun throwback to the 8-bit era, keeping in line with Happymeal’s usual style that we saw in games like Final Exerion. The level design is competent and the characters are all fun to play in their own way, and even with the game’s very short length, the varying difficulties and speedrun mode offer a lot of replay value for those wanting to try and tune to the challenge to their liking.
Yeah, needing to take on a loop 2 to get to the final boss is mildly annoying, but all the characters coming together in that second loop along with slightly remixed stages really help to make the second time around a lot less tedious than most games of the era would normally be, and I had quite a lot of fun going through all of it on Easy mode and most of it on the Hard mode. I just wish there was more game here in general, but what you do get here is rock-solid platforming action. Hopefully the Retro Revengers make another comeback so we can see more of what crazy things they could do a throwback to!
I give Retro Revengers a 7 out of 10.