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Megabyte Punch
PC (Steam)
SM4SHED
4/5 stars
“Megabyte Punch” (“MBP”) is the first game by two-man Dutch Indie developer, Team Reptile. After going through the Greenlight process, “MBP” successfully went from a Homebrew title that filled the developers’ personal desire to see a unique title in this style on PC, to a full commercial release appearing on Steam and GOG.
Presentation
“MBP” is a fairly simple-looking polygonal game built in the Unity Engine. Character and environmental models are crafted from simple polygons and feature bold colors instead of detailed textures. The resulting look of the game is very stylized, and reminiscent of the computer world in the ‘TRON’ movies, which makes sense, considering that’s exactly the kind of world “MBP” inhabits.
The audio, done by a freelance addition to the Team Reptile duo, is driving, iconic techno, which only further drives home the idea that “MBP” is a game heavily inspired by the aesthetics of the 1980s.
Technically, “MBP” is fairly solid, but it does have some major annoyances when it comes to using controllers to play it (and even the devs recommend using controllers to play it!). Setting up 3-player co-op was a trial-and-error affair which frequently saw one of the three players unable to move their character, or one player controlling two characters simultaneously – this using the officially recommended Xbox 360 Controllers for Windows. “MBP’s” controller woes only become worse in the modern era of XBONE controllers, as the game either interprets one of the triggers always being pressed (making it unplayable) or, after the Windows 10 Anniversary Update, doesn’t recognize XBONE controllers at all. Unity Engine games tend to have problems with XBONE controllers, and Microsoft doesn’t seem to care that their new controllers don’t adhere to the Xinput standard that they invented.
Story
“MBP” takes place inside a digital world inhabited by living software programs called Megacs. Our hero Megac lives peacefully in a small village, but as the game opens, a powerful artifact known as the Hearstone addresses the hero, revealing to him/it that powerful forces within the digital world want to steal the Hearstone’s power for themselves, which will result in the destruction of the hero’s village.
Our hero Megac then sets out on a quest spanning 6 digital worlds, seeking aid in protecting the Hearstone. Things go awry, as they usually do, with powerful administrative Megacs interfering with our hero’s task, and even an undead invasion of deleted-but-not-gone sub-programs.
Overall, the story that plays out seems heavily influenced by “TRON” and provides an entertaining theoretical take on the everyday life of software. “MBP” isn’t particularly long, with only 6 stages and a relatively drawn-out final boss encounter, but each stage is filled with hidden secrets, which can make replaying them something of a pleasant treasure hunt.
Gameplay
“MBP” is unapologetically a knock-off of Nintendo’s ‘Super Smash Bros.’ franchise. The combat is all there: Directional standard attacks, directional special attacks, double jumping, shielding, percentage-based damage, and knocking enemies off the edge of the stage, all in 2.5D. “MBP” also features two modes, the story-centric Adventure Mode and the more traditional Fight Mode.
In Fight Mode, players can bring their customized Megac to bear against a slate of 9 AI opponents in 1 vs. 1 battles, with prizes handed out for those who place in the top 5. Damage is cumulative and carries over between battles, making it similar to ‘Smash Bros.’’ All-Star Mode, plus the player has only three lives to get through all 9 opponents. Fight Mode also allows up to four-player local (no online) PvP.
Adventure Mode is the main mode and main draw of the game. As 1-4 players make their way through Adventure Mode’s 6 stages, they will find themselves battling – and destroying – a large number of evil Megacs and other simpler programs. These enemies randomly drop bits, which serve as money (collecting 64 bits also provides a player with an extra life for the current stage), and parts. Players can fully customize their Megacs with parts from fallen foes, swapping out both arms, both legs, head, torso, hip and shoulder parts. In this way, “MBP” slightly resembles the classic ‘Mega Man’ games, in which a little robotic hero would acquire the weapons of each defeated boss enemy.
I absolutely love the customization aspect of “MBP,” and I found the Adventure Mode to be the type of in-depth single-player/co-op experience that “Super Smash Bros. for WiiU/3DS” is sorely missing. The only thing preventing me from heaping nothing but praise upon “MBP’s” gameplay is the fact that many of the Megacs’ customization parts do identical things. While there are dozens of different parts with different names and appearances, there are only a handful of special attacks these parts unlock, and the ones that don’t unlock special attacks simply boost an attribute by a tiny amount or provide an extra jump (as far as I can tell, it’s possible to boost a Megac’s jump capacity from 2 to 5 via custom parts).
The co-op aspect of “MBP” is done quite well. Enemies don’t have any scaling health nonsense, and each player is given their own portion of the screen via a traditional split-screen view. Players are free to split up and explore stages in search of treasure (bits and parts hidden in chests) or stick together in order to thoroughly pound on enemies. Each player has their own life tally, and if one member of a co-op team bombs out and dies too many times, upon progressing to the next portion of a given stage (each of which is 3 parts plus a boss), the dead player’s portion of the split-screen view is dynamically removed, allowing remaining players a wider view. Sure, it can be tedious to watch companions continue through a stage after dying 3 times in short succession… but the only solution is to ‘git gud,’ as the Souls Trolls say.
Overall
While it may not be original in its mechanics, “Megabyte Punch” is the single-player/co-op Adventure Mode that Nintendo neglected to put into their latest ‘Super Smash Bros.’ titles. Shaping these proven fighting mechanics around a core of co-op and character customization was a brilliant move by Team Reptile, resulting in a solo or co-op experience that is a lot of fun, despite the limited scale of the Adventure and limited scope of the customization.
Presentation: 3/5
Story: 3.5/5
Gameplay: 4.5/5
Overall (not an average): 4/5
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