NES-style Mega Man returns, kind of.
When a sport wears its inspiration so clearly on its sleeve, direct comparisons between the 2 are inevitable. Such is the case with Trophy, an unabashed Mega Man clone, but in addition a reliable one, for essentially the most half. Whereas the soar and shoot motion stays largely intact, the signature weapon upgrades are noticeably absent. Thankfully, that deviation does not detract overmuch from Trophy’s high quality. What does, nonetheless, is reasonable, irritating enemy placement and pretty rudimentary degree design.
The mixture of fine man Dr. Sword and his robotic good friend Beeper, Trophy (the titular combating robotic) runs and weapons by means of a complete of eight preliminary phases and a ultimate degree that unlocks after clearing them. You possibly can select which of the phases to play and full them in any order, however some like Practice and Forest are simpler than others. A pair are downright merciless by way of their enemy placement and even the checkpoints the place you spawn after dying. Whereas the phases themselves really feel very acquainted to this lifelong Blue Bomber fan, they’re additionally pretty spinoff and even repetitive, the aforementioned Practice degree being notably boring. Every stage ends with a big boss combat, and these vary from manageable to difficult and even maddening.
Working in its favor is that the controls really feel fairly strong; leaping and capturing down all method of robotic opposition is basically satisfying all through. An odd hit field round your character means you will land some tough platforming jumps that you just may need considered failures but in addition make contact with instant-kill spikes while you had been sure you skirted previous. Sadly, there is no button remapping (or any actual choices in any respect), so that you’re caught with utilizing A to leap and B to shoot.
The music is definitely fairly nice and provides to the 8-bit NES-style nostalgia play. The sound results wouldn’t be misplaced in a Capcom or Konami title from that period, and the visuals are crisp. On the subject of efficiency, there may be some apparent slowdown when a number of enemies and projectiles are on display screen concurrently, however it was undoubtedly tolerable and dare I say acquainted.
Hidden secrets and techniques within the phases assist you to improve your well being meter or energy up your blaster, including to the scale and power of your bullets. When you get caught, I discovered it worthwhile to maneuver on to a special stage and hopefully purchase some upgrades to make earlier challenges simpler to beat. Now if solely there was an improve that allowed you to see every boss’ well being meter…
Trophy is a reliable and satisfying action-platformer that appears and appears like Mega Man, even when it falters in just a few particular areas and doesn’t fairly stay as much as that comparability. The sport does sufficient to make it value recommending to followers of 8-bit classics of yore, supplied you’ll be able to look previous a few of its poor degree design and low-cost deaths. On the finish of the day, I might award it a trophy someplace in between participation and podium.
