Mighty Goose by developers Blastmode Games, MP2 Games and publisher Playism—Sony Playstation 4 review written by Richard with a copy provided by the publisher.
Estimated reading time: 5 minutes
Do you know what the mightiest of birds are? Is it the pidgeon? The crow? Here in Canada, we know what the mightiest of birds is: the goose. They're tough, they're gruff, and they won't hesitate to beat you up. Obviously the developers of Mighty Goose are aware of this, with the eponymous bounty hunter and feathered friend Mighty Goose.
Mighty Goose is a fine feathered bounty hunter chasing after evil across the galaxy. The dreaded void king is taking over, and Mighty Goose is contracted to get rid of the problem. With his trusty mechanical gun arm and pig(?) assistant, the great Mighty Goose is off to rescue planets across the galaxy from the dominion of the VOID. Mighty Goose is very reminiscient of Metal Slug, or maybe some of the older megaman games for those of you who don't recognize Metal Slug, in both art style and gameplay.
You play as the eponymous Mighty Goose, fighting your way through 2D side-scrolling stages, shooting up enemies, collecting different weapon types, occasionally hopping in vehicles, and beating up the bad guys. The Mighty Goose has a normal shot that is the default, but can also pick up limited ammo weapons while going through a stage, or get them called in via air drop for a cash price. As you run, gun, and dodge-roll through stages, you may also come across "war machines", such as a bike, a tank, or a…mecha goose suit. Hop on in and rain bullets down upon your enemies. In addition to the gunning, the Mighty Goose also has a secondary skill that can be used. The secondary skills can be swapped out between stages, and may be damaging skills like bombs, support skills like filling the "mighty meter", or honking.
If you fill up the mighty meter, you can enter a super mode where you don't take damage from enemies (environment is still fair game) and your weapons are enhanced. The gauge will deplete, even when not using the mighty mode, so make sure to keep it filled for when you need it. After completing a stage you can visit the armoury to choose what secondary skills to equip, as well as passive skills which will unlock as you play through the game. Passive skills may be as small as "increased walking speed", but can help you out a lot. You have a limited amount of energy to assign skills, so make sure you know what you want. You can also pick an ally to join you. That's right, you can bring an assistant into battle, that can also be controlled by a friend in a sort of co-op mode. Although the partner isn't to the same level as Mighty Goose, they can definitely still assist you.
Mighty Goose has a great retro feel with both the soundtrack as well as graphic style, and I felt like the developers really nailed a lot of what made the old school games so enjoyable. Unfortunately there are a few very noticeable setbacks. First and foremost: you have a melee attack. If enemies get too close, you slash them instead of shooting. Which is pretty awful considering all of the guns other than the default definitely do more damage than the slash attack. Second, there's a sub weapon that are rockets, and they are unequivocably awful to handle. They are auto seeking, but hover around a bit before doing anything, and I would routinely go out of my way to avoid picking them up.
The game is also very short. I completed the normal game, "new game +", and had most of the stages S ranked within three hours. I'd also like to point out that the S rank requirements are… weird, I suppose you could say. It seems like there are certain benchmarks you need to hit for kills, deaths, combo, and speed, but points aren't total cumulative? There is also this really annoying slo-mo and cut-in with a honking goose occasionally, which is really infuriating. As much as I gripe though, I truly do hope to see more from the Blastmode and MP2 developers in the future. I had a lot of fun with Mighty Goose, and can't wait to see what they come out with next.
Summary
Overall, Mighty Goose is a pretty fun game with a lot good points to it. The combat basis is pretty well done, the skills and upgrades are a neat touch, and the weapon system was enjoyable. Unfortunately, there just isn't a whole lot there to really dig into. Mighty Goose is well too short, and coupled with some of the more aggravating issues, such as the periodic slow-mo, the easy difficulty, and how the "post game" is just the main game but a little harder, Mighty Goose probably won't keep you occupied for too long. That being said, if you enjoy Metal Slug, this is definitely going to be put on your watch list, it will probably just be one of those titles you'll pick up on sale.
Score: 7.5 / 10
0 comments:
Post a Comment