Battle Kid: Fortress of Peril Review

I’m no stranger to the time period ‘retro’. Evaluation sufficient indie video games, and also you’re certain to run throughout a developer or two who will use the phrase to explain why their recreation is so sensible. In apply although, it tends to translate to a recreation with an hour or two of simplistic gameplay, with some bog-standard pixel artwork and an annoyingly repetitive chiptune soundtrack slapped on high. 

However Battle Child: Fortress of Peril is completely different. That is an precise retro expertise, warts and all. That shouldn’t shock you although, contemplating this can be a port of an precise homebrew NES recreation that was launched in 2010. 

Why I’m solely discovering out now that individuals are nonetheless making cartridge video games for the Nintendo Leisure System is anybody’s guess. However, I digress. 

In Battle Child, you’ll be taking part in as Timmy, an unremarkable pupil within the prestigious fight coaching program on the Disch Analysis Facility. His former buddy, Chester, has been kicked out of this system for dishonest and is now again to enact his revenge. It’s as much as you to cease him by travelling to the eponymous Fortress of Peril and doing battle in opposition to the waves of enemies that reside there. 

As a narrative, it’s nothing to put in writing house about. It’s there to easily arrange the motion properly. Actually, the sport itself makes that clear by together with an arcade mode which can skip many of the cutscenes robotically. 

Specializing in the gameplay finally ends up being the best alternative as a result of, put merely, it’s sensible. Battle Child is your quintessential Metroidvania, and contains the whole lot you’d count on from a recreation becoming that description. 

The Fortress of Peril is an absolute maze, full of various enemies, bosses and new objects to gather. There’s a ton of dead-ends as sure paths are inaccessible with out the right keys or skills. It’s additionally huge, with the sport together with over 500 completely different screens. 

They’re all superbly designed by the best way. Battle Child completely nails the 8-bit artwork to ship one thing that’s vibrant and vibrant and which wouldn’t look misplaced within the mid-Eighties. The huge old-school borders are simply the cherry on high. And the soundtrack is even higher. It’s loud and piercing and precisely what you need from a NES recreation a couple of harmful fortress filled with goons. It truly adjustments between areas to suit the theme too. 

It ought to shock no-one that Battle Child is definitely actually exhausting. You’ll have to dodge waves of enemies, typically while tackling some fairly difficult platforming. And that’s earlier than you even make it to the bosses, the place the issue is ramped up even additional. There’s no short-term invulnerability both, so count on to get hit a number of occasions in speedy succession. 

And should you’re a glutton for punishment, you possibly can whack the issue as much as ‘unfair’, which supplies you 1 HP, and a demise restrict of 1. 

It’s protected to say you’ll die. Loads. 

And that’s positive. Actually, I respect the no-frills problem that Battle Child provides. However it’s right here the place the restrictions of the unique software program start to make themselves clear. 

Most notably, Battle Child utterly lacks any type of auto-saving, as an alternative preferring (or being compelled) to make use of the previous password system that hasn’t been related since about 1996. Should you’ve by no means encountered this earlier than, it means you’ll have to discover a checkpoint after which write down the password that’s generated if you wish to come again to your save recreation. 

It’s a system that can most likely be nostalgic for some, however finally one that ought to have been left previously the place it belongs. It’s cumbersome and annoying to make use of, particularly in a recreation as exhausting as this. Should you’re like me, you’ll end up having to beat the identical boss a number of occasions as you’ll most likely find yourself dying a couple of screens down the road earlier than discovering one other checkpoint. And belief me, that’s no enjoyable. 

It additionally lacks any type of button mapping, which is a disgrace as a result of the present button format, while comprehensible on the unique {hardware}, feels counterintuitive on a contemporary controller. You’ll shoot with A and bounce with B, but it surely feels prefer it must be the opposite manner round. You’re going to need to put up with it too, except you manually reassign the buttons within the Xbox settings. That looks like such an pointless step although, and I see no purpose why this characteristic couldn’t have been included within the ported model.  

These two points don’t swing the ultimate verdict although. Battle Child: Fortress of Peril continues to be a superb little blast from the previous. It doesn’t attempt to reinvent the wheel, and it basically provides up nothing you haven’t seen earlier than. As an alternative, it tries to ship a stable slice of nostalgia and an honest problem. And on these two factors, it solely succeeds. Battle Child seems to be, sounds and performs like one thing straight out of the Eighties, and I’d encourage anybody to test it out. The Fortress of Peril is ready…

Battle Child: Fortress of Peril is obtainable on the Xbox Retailer