Game: A Night at the Races
Genre: Arcade, Platformer, Action, Adventure
System: Nintendo Switch (also on Steam, Windows)
Developer | Publisher: Mushy Jukebox | Nakana.io
Age Rating: US Teen | EU 16+
Price: US $9.99 | UK £8.99 | EU € 9,99
Release Date: September 3rd, 2021
Review code provided with many thanks to Nakana.io
A Night at the Races is one of those games that wears its inspirations on its sleeves, while also bringing forth a different experience as well. Super Meat Boy is one of the many indie games that people are more than likely familiar with, even if they had never played the game themselves. Infamous for being extremely difficult, it’s no surprise that other indie developers would look at the formula put forth by the ambitious title and seek to capture some of the magic. But how does A Night at the Races hold up? Let’s find out.
Going for the Cash Prize
How good are you at video games? Are you good enough to participate in a race against hundreds, perhaps even thousands of people to win a cash grand prize? In A Night at the Races, you play as a Nathan as he plays through a difficult platforming game known as No Berry Left Behind. There is currently an illegal tournament going on where the winner will get 25,000mc. Nothing to scoff at, especially when you eventually find out that you’re behind on rent payments and are being threatened with eviction.
From there, you decide to join the tournament and make your way through the game. The story of A Night at the Races is drip-fed just about every time you complete a world in No Berry Left Behind. You navigate and interact with items via point-and-click. There is no dialogue, with any information behind portrayed by messages on your phone or computer, or via animations played out in front of you. And as you progress through A Night at the Races, things start getting more and more surreal.
Precision Platforming
Super Meat Boy was mentioned earlier in this review as a comparison and that was for a reason. While you do have point-and-click portions in A Night at the Races, the majority of the gameplay will be from playing the platforming game. You play as a square berry who has been selected by the king to kill all of the berries that are said to contain a poison that can kill everyone in the kingdom. And from there, you are off on your journey.
Auto-runner Platformer
Your berry is always in motion with no way to stop them at all, making this an auto-runner platformer. You can change directions at any time, jump, and charge. There are a few hints about how you want to go about playing No Berry Left Behind via other players within the game, such as not relying too much on changing the direction your berry is going or primarily using the jump button. While each level is set up to be handled a specific way (some of which is very obvious if you pay attention to how your character moves from one berry to the next), you can clear levels without following the recommended flow.
However, there are a few quirks that keep you from just blazing through levels. First, you have to make sure that you are killing the berries on each level. For every berry that you skip, you lose a life. Since there is no way for you to move backwards through a level, once the screen has moved up with you, you must commit to continuing. If you fall or decide to try to backtrack, you will fall out of bounds and lose lives until you are back on screen. And since you only have four lives, that instantly destroys any thought about cheating your way through levels. Secondly, you take damage anytime you hit an obstacle. So whether it’s those shiny triangles that always seems to be in the wrong place at the wrong time or enemy fire that loves to follow you around.
Easy to Learn, Hard to Master
There are twelve worlds altogether, with the first world being comprised of tutorial levels. With each level within this first world, the game with ease you into using the controls and how the flow of each level will go. And while the controls in general aren’t hard to figure out, it’s how you use them that will more than likely give you issues. Your precision needs to be pretty good, especially if you’re aiming for a high score and fast times. There will be times where caution is needed, while other times you’ll want to be risky.
The level layout and enemies do become more difficult as you progress through each world, with later enemies attacking you or killing themselves off (thus taking away one of your lives). If you’re just looking to complete levels and are not going for a high score, don’t be afraid to sacrifice a life or two. However, your remaining lives and the time it took you to complete a level do affect your score.
Restart with all of your Lives
All levels are vertically aligned, with the screen following you as you make your way through upwards. As mentioned earlier, that means that after a certain point, there is a death zone below you. Sometimes, this can end up being more of a threat to you. For instance, there may be times where you suddenly find yourself gaining more speed than you want, ending up you skipping berries. Or, even worse, if you accidentally overshoot the goal and end up needing to reset the level. Thankfully, there is just a single button press to restart with all of your lives, albeit at the beginning of the stage.
There are a couple of ways to make things easier for those who are just not good at precision platforming. There is a way to slow down the game speed to 60% if you find that you’re not reacting quick enough to what the game is throwing at you. But if even that is not helping you clear, you do have the option to skip to the next level. The game will count that level as complete, but will not give you a score. So if you’re only interested in the storytelling portions, that is an option, albeit not really worth the effort of getting the game if you’re not into these types of games to begin with.
A Berry Nice Aesthetic
The art is just as strange as the game itself, with a lot of bright colours and muted backgrounds. This makes everything pop out much more. And although I personally don’t have much experience with older games. It definitely feels like it’s attempting to replicate art from older PC games, which fits the theme of the game overall. The soundtrack is primarily techno-based, with a nice range of light-hearted beats to more sombre, bass-filled tunes. It’s a nice accompaniment to the game as a whole and definitely adds to the experience.
Conclusion
Whilst precision platforming is not quite my thing, I can appreciate when a game excels at what it’s set out to accomplish. While some stages felt a bit too tight, I never felt as though a level was impossible to clear. And given the small size of stages and ease of resetting when things aren’t going quite right, A Night at the Races is a great game to pick up and play a few stages when you want to scratch that itch. The story elements are interesting to watch unfold. Although I wouldn’t say worth getting the game solely for those moments if the platforming isn’t your thing. Overall, A Night at the Races is a solid game to dig into, especially if you love a challenge.
Final Verdict: I Like It 