Game: Metagal
System: Nintendo Switch
Developer/ Publisher: RetroRevolution / Ratalaika Games
Price: €4,99| £4.99| $4.99
Age Rating: EU 7+| USA 10+
Release Date: 29th March 2019
Also Available On: PS4 & Steam
Review code kindly provided by Ratalaika Games
Meta has returned home to find her creator Dr. Ray kidnapped and her robot sisters turned into powerful enemies by the evil General Creeper. It’s time to suit up and traverse the various tricks and traps on your perilous rescue mission.
A Tough Challenge Awaits
Fans of Mega Man will realise the parallels almost instantly. Metagal borrows a lot of its aesthetic, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing given the faithful and enjoyable adaptation. With this also comes the difficulty, Metagal carries that same challenging platform style. You start off relatively simple, running and gunning your way through the tricky backdrops, but as you finally meet the end of each stage you then face off against a boss and acquire their ability. These range from a shield, dash attack, high jump and a warp beam.
There are only a few stages, making this a very brief experience. But they all offer that trademark challenge, and allow you to persist as much as you can handle to reach the goal. Practice makes perfect though, as speed and precision all factor into your stage clear rank, sadly to say my skills rarely broke the bottom rung haha. I have no real complaints about how the game plays or controls.
Short But Sweet
As previously mentioned, the game is pretty short. I only managed to simply clear each stage though, challenging yourself to attain higher ranking in each stage bears various rewards and certainly fleshes out the experience for true retro challenge seekers. It’s a very modestly priced game so I feel they made a very nice package.
Other details of note would be the bright, lively soundtrack and the active landscapes that you may miss as you endure the tricky gameplay. The dialogue and brisk humour were a bit corny, but it all ties in to the usual retro charm I write about a lot.
Discount Mega Man, Not A Discount Game
To conclude, I bring up again that the game definitely seems to exude an intention to parallel the well established Mega Man style games. Regardless, Metagal stands on her own two feet and should definitely be a stop on your journey if you are a fan of the blue bot. All that aside, it was a fun, challenging game all its own. Even a more casual Platformer enthusiast would be in for a good time.
