Thanks to Ratalaika Games for the review code
Title: Feudal Bros Tonosama #1
System: Nintendo Switch (eShop)
Price: $5.99
Release Date: 04/04/2025
Story
In this wacky Co-Op adventure, you take control of one of a prince and a lord, both named a variation of the term “Stupid”. They decide to set out across Japan, and eventually Europe and beyond, because weird things are happening.
Upon meeting powerful spirits that merge with them, they gain the ability to become super muscular and obliterate their foes with ease, albeit with limited time to do so before they revert back to normal. The game does try to have a sense of humor with the dialogue, and the new english translation is pretty well done, though the game isn’t gonna make you laugh out loud by any means.
Presentation
We’re back to the newer Ratalaika wrapper from their other Sunsoft reissues, meaning a sloppier, more simplified one that has a weirdly ineffective Turbo feature and no button remapping support in sight. Still, you do have an assortment of scanned materials, a sound test, and even animatied sprites to go through, though with this being a Japan import originally, all of the scanned text in the manual remains in Japanese.
Considering the lack of other context in this reissue, that means you pretty much will have to figure out the game’s quirks all on your own, unless you read Japanese.You still have the usual assortment of display/filter options, with them being an overall downgrade from the old wrapper that worked a lot better on Switch than this newer one. Still, I was able to pick the usual integer option and get right to work on playing through the game.
For a late era SFC title, Feudal Bros has a remarkably bland presentation. Nothing special to note when it comes to visual effects, and the OST is forgettable as well. I seriously can’t describe this game as much more than a typical SFC action game, and a poor looking imitation of Natsume’s Kiki Kaikai games on the same system, which had excellent music, cool visual effects, and plenty of charming animations. Outside of some pretty funny end cards, Feudal Bros is as basic as it gets, which is a huge shame considering how Sunsoft’s NES games were at the top of their class, and even some of their other SNES stuff like the Hebereke Spinoffs had better presentations than this.
There’s also an ungodly amount of slowdown, which completely kills the pacing of the action and makes the whole experience feel like you’re going through mud at certain points. So not only does the game look and sound unremarkable, but it still suffers from slowdown to the point it impacts the play experience! All in all, pretty poor.
Gameplay
Picking between one of the two heroes, you either have a character who uses melee attacks with his fan to defeat enemies, or another who throws roses at foes to make them explode. Either way, upon picking a lord of your choice, you’re free to choose between various stages in Japan and do them in any order you desire, and you’re given pretty simple controls to get the job done. You move in eight directions with the D-Pad, plus use your basic attack, a dodge maneuver, a jump, and a special transformation technique with the face buttons, plus a special elemental scroll that you can unleash with the R button, and even combine with your transformation for an ultimate finisher attack.
Once your percentage meter gets to a certain amount, hitting the transformation button will make your character super muscular, and this breaks the game in what might be Feudal Bros’ best moment, since your character will literally gain the power to decimate anything in his path, and I mean anything. If it can make contact with an enemy to damage them, it will shred through their health in only a few hits, and that includes all bosses, including the final boss.
Does this make the game’s balance completely meaningless if you use the transformation at the right moments? Yes. Does it make the game waaaaaaay more fun than the otherwise boring level design would otherwise offer? Also yes. Thus, it was this silly mechanic, along with the short length of the stages in general that kept me playing until the very end, even if the other parts of the game aren’t much to write home about.
No, seriously, Feudal Bros, outside of this special transformation mechanic, really isn’t that special. It’s otherwise a very poor attempt to mimic Pocky and Rocky, and manages to be even more unenjoyable than even Snow Princess Sayuki was for me all those years ago. If you didn’t have the wacky ability to transform, this would be an incredibly dull game with little to take notes on, outside of the insufferable slowdown making this feel like an unusually sloppy SNES title considering the year in which it released.
There’s local Co-Op, but I didn’t wanna bother making anyone else wait on this review just to have another pal play this with me. Upon beating Japan, you move to europe, and then after that, the final stage is unlocked and that’s the entire game. None of the stages are anywhere close to memorable outside of the humor with some of the bosses, and yet again the broken transformations are the lone semblance of fun that I was able to have with this game.
Conclusion
Ultimately, Feudal Bros is another super expensive game to finally get a reissue in a more affordable fashion, plus with a well done English translation to boot, but upon playing it to completion I honestly do not understand the appeal to this game at all. If you take away the amusing overpowered nature of the muscular forms, this is one of the most bog-standard, generic top down action games I’ve played in quite a while, and comparing it to contemporary titles on the same system hurts it even more.
Sure, you have local co-op, but there’s little else to take away from the overall experience and nothing really memorable about it besides the Cho Aniki-esque humor and the overpowered muscular forms you can take up to obliterate bosses. If it weren’t for the amusement of being able to destroy a stage boss in two or three punches due to that mechanic, I’d just be content calling this a rich man’s version of Pocky and Rocky. Even with that feature though, Feudal Bros is not a SNES gem in the slightest.
I give Feudal Bros Tonosama #1 a 5 out of 10.