Vengeance Hunter Review (eShop Switch)

With beat ’em experiencing a renaissance of late, it feels like a new title is entering the fray every week. While some attempts to use IP like Double Dragon And Teenage mutant ninja turtles To attract attention, others are rekindling the magic of the genre with unique ideas. Come into Nuala Studio Hunter revengea young project notable for its development platform, the Neo Geo, a 34-year-old piece of video game hardware.

The Revenge Hunter doesn’t shy away from clichés. Its introduction revolves around the skyline of a brooding city while depicting a dystopian future under threat from “The High Suits. Captain of industry. Bastards of the upper crust.” So it’s politically ambiguous. Enter the three main characters, awkwardly titled Candy, Golem and Loony; respectively a muscular woman, a bulky robot and a muscular semi-machine man.

One thing you can’t help but be impressed with is the graphics of Vengeance Hunter. Nuala Studio’s artists really dedicate themselves to their work here. The backgrounds are full of detail, with great color combinations and palettes that make up for the game’s vast scope. You wander through forests, wastelands, streets, and the obligatory (and arguably less interesting) corporate headquarters. Sonically, it feels like an 80s cartoon with a lot of bite, something like police or Bravestarr: mature enough with its vibe, sometimes bursting with blood and fire, while still maintaining its traditional arcade roots.

It also looks beautiful in motion, with large, beautifully animated sprites that move across the screen in unique and fun ways. Sonically, it’s good enough, highly synthesized, evoking a pseudo-’80s sci-fi feel – but it lacks a certain edge and authenticity. It sounds like it wants to Streets of rage in some places, but it’s softer and more ambient, less impactful or memorable.

The combat system has some clever nuances though and isn’t as combo-heavy as Winkysoft’s Guardian (1995), there are some unique elements drawn from more modern ideas. Each character has a weak and difficult attack, a jump, and a signature move that can be used infinitely. Pressing both attack buttons will perform a traditional break move, which pays for a portion of your life bar.

However – and we love this idea – instead of losing health completely, the part you bet on when you break through will be grayed out. If you successfully then attack your opponent without interruption, you can beat that gray back to a stable yellow. It’s a smart and effective way to manage the old genre, while also bringing in larger strategic aspects.

The combo system is also flexible. In fact, there are juggling opportunities that, if you have the reflexes, like certain advanced fighting games, let you jump into the air repeatedly to tag hits before following up with a powerful attack or signature move. Candy is the weakest of the three characters. Compared to Golem and Loony, she’s not as interesting and less powerful. Loony has the advantage of his signature projectile move, which can fire his robotic arm across the screen, taking advantage of his relatively slow speed by preventing enemies from encroaching.

Golem, the robot, is the best for our money, boasting both muscle power and speed, with a signature move that allows you to grab enemies on both the ground and in the air, and then swing them forward or push them backwards. There are also charged special moves that can be added to chains or juggled, and each character can double-tap forward to dash and attack.

Overall, Vengeance Hunters is a good and in-depth project. We like the fact that the bosses have distinct models and there are secret side-parts and story variations depending on who you play as. At one point, you hop on a bike and ride through the desert wasteland, avoiding toxic barrels and squid-like creatures; while in others, you challenge bosses in virtual one-on-one fighting games on arcade cabinets. These novel touches work well to break up repetition and encourage replayability.

However, despite the undoubted positives, we still have problems in some areas. The difficulty is well balanced, quite challenging at the default level, and encourages learning and experimentation. However, at the same time, there are aspects that require a bit of work. For some reason, there are a lot of things exploding in the game: barrels, bombs, bombs inside boxes, pipe bombs, and even enemies. Things seem to be exploding all over the place and to be honest a little too often. You can learn to avoid these fire hazards, but since you can’t pick up bombs, it’s annoying to constantly be swept out of the flow by an explosion or having to stop attacking to dodge.

There are also secondary weapons to use, but they are very strange. Instead of your usual swords and pipes, they take the form of cannons that hover above your character’s head and fire horizontally. That means you need to stand above and slightly diagonally to catch enemies with them. It’s almost impossible to use them effectively, but it’s one of those ideas that looks better on paper, as they don’t feel particularly satisfying to use. Compared to the great rifles available in the likes of Capcom Punisherthey don’t do much to enhance the gameplay.

Crucially, the combat, while arranged in a way that experimentally works, falls short of those solid connections found in many arcade games of the same mold of the ’90s. It works, but the response is not quite at the same level. The combined manufacturing feels good but still lacks something in terms of overall weight.

However, one of the strangest omissions is the inability to catch anyone. We feel like grabs are an integral part of the belt winder as they allow you to gather in packs and although one could argue that the Vengeance Hunter is going its own way, but the absence still feels strange. This is especially evident when playing as Golem, who is probably the most interesting character in the game largely because he has his own signature move.

There are five fairly lengthy stages to get through, but learning them and the accompanying boss encounters will take some time. It might seem strange that you start the game in a rainforest fighting hordes of Amazonian zombies – especially after the futuristic city skyline in the opening story – but at least it’s interesting. Some of the later positions are not entirely original. Finally, local co-op is available for two players, but there’s no online mode here.

Conclusion

The Vengeance Hunter does many things well. Its pixel art is great, with some cool looking enemies. It also has a lot of interesting ideas in the combat mechanics that allow seasoned gamers to dig deeper. It’s a game that ranges from impressive to occasionally questionable. Enemy repetition starts off a bit annoying, but then excellent and imaginative boss battles restore balance. We’re not too comfortable with the removal of pegs, the odd form of its secondary weapon, or its excessive number of explosive obstacles, but we can’t ignore that it’s capable and functional. good in many other important areas. Necessary? Perhaps it doesn’t quite reach that level, but for fans of the genre and those who enjoy the possibilities of exploit combinations, there’s a bright, solid and sometimes quite clever reel-to-reel belt here .