Welcome to our review of a new indie game on Nintendo Switch, this is our review for Squareboy vs. bullies, the arena edition.
Lately, the Nintendo Switch has been on fire, more and more quality games have hit the Nintendo eShop and today we will see whether or not this game falls under that same category!
The premise of this game, being a good guy that stands up to bullies, a story with embedded morals on saying NO to bullies! The design is actually quite simplistic, the main hero, is basically a “square” boy, hence the name of the game, but it makes sense really when you play.
The bullies are the enemies that you face off with, a very basic set of enemies with even more basic attack patterns, ranging from basic attacks to throwing objects or firing bullets. These bullies are basically big square boys with either a tomahawk or a hat or so, nothing special, much like the attack patterns.
Talking about these attack patterns, I figured out, about 20 minutes into the game, that you can play two styles. You either attack and often get ambushed or run over by the numbers of bullies on screen or you use a “hit and run” tactic, run into the bullies, jumping and dropkicking away at them. I must say this was disappointing to find out!
Is this game difficult? Not really, use the same hit and run tactic the entire time and you barely get hit at all.
So how does it fare against the heavier hitters already out on the system? Not so well really, this game is basically a double dragon styled game, but with little to no surprise in gameplay, aside from the obvious glitches you will face. During my first hour alone, I felt my Joy-Cons did not respond correctly to several of my attempts, especially the times when I tried basic moving around, is when I got annoyed by this.
I dislike being negative about games, but faced with so many problems and limitations in the game, I am stuck between my liking for the genre, I do not mind a fighter in this style from time to time, but really… I feel like there are more problems preventing me from really enjoying this game, despite the idea being time-tested already and having given us a ton of great games already.
Squareboy vs bullies is also available for free to try on smartphones, sure, the full game is hidden behind a paywall, this does allow you to try the game for free. It is my humble suggestion that you try this beat’m up on smartphone prior to buying it on Nintendo Switch.
In conclusion, I am disappointed with this game, really. Originally pegged as an old skool Beat’m up, this game seriously needs to be patched to at least work properly. At this moment, I can not give a passing grade to this game, just too many things are wrong and need to be fixed.
My rating stands at a mere 30%
