G.I.Joe: Wrath Of Cobra - demo - review

[usa423]

The devs were nice enough to release a demo so I will give a quick review and talk about a few things.

The two stages I was allowed to play was either on one of Cobra's giant flying aircraft carriers, or in one of their mountain fortresses.

The two characters offered for the demo were either Scarlet or Duke, They each have different strengths about them. Scarlet's legs of course allow her more kicking power. Duke's stats were perfectly balanced.

One of the Cobra characters, I think they are night vipers and not the standard infantry, had issues with getting stuck and not moving or pursuing the player.

Crimson Guard - Either these guys are really really fast (like Superhero fast) or they can teleport. In either case I do not recall the Crimson Guards ever having those abilities. Maybe they have special suits? I dunno...

Dr Mindbender - A decent boss fight, some flashy stuff with the multiple clones and the plasma carpet roll attack.

Baroness - The first time I fought Baroness with Duke there was only a few infantry around her. The second time with Scarlet she had quite a bit more. I thought Baroness had way too much energy. A long drawn out asymmetrical attrition fight almost like fighting Dracula on Castlevania 1. I think what you should do here is balance out her energy with her troops around her. Possibly giving the troops a few respawnsm this is of course after her energy is brought way down.

Sound and music - The look of this game is obviously targeted at generation X. Why then is there none of the classic sounds or themes here? It is officially Hasbro so surely they have the rights to the cartoons and cartoon movie. That stuff would go a long way. If not the direct music then perhaps midi regenerated themes or close to those themes. And just small audio samples of the characters throughout the shows. "YO JOE!" "COBRA!" The tight pew pew of the laser rifles.

Overall I liked it and I am a fan of beat em up games and G.I.Joe, and most likely will pick it up, unless it is just too expensive, at which case I will likely wait for a sale.

[owen da master]

Pros:
the pixel artstyle is really charming
Duke and Scarlet have distinct methods of fighting
interesting details such as battle damaged cobra troops and vehicles in the background


Cons:
Cobra trooper in the hiss tank needs new sprites to signify that he's manning the cannons
Control settings menu is generic instead of matching the other menus
Bosses could use some more lines than just laughing

[Liquid ID]

Looks good but lacks features, needs better controls (holding block or turning while mid-animation or knocked down will ignore input leading to attacking int he wrong direction alot), more/better level interactions, better enemy AI (they do dumb things and kill themselves), respawn fixes (falling death loops are a reality), etc.

Given better level design and gameplay variety, I could get into this. I hope the full version has much more meat on these beautiful bones.

[18y44]

Thank you for the demo, Ok combat system, I wish you were able to grapple and throw enemies after combos instead of them laying on the ground, in addition you should also be able to attack enemies who are downed. Hopefully there will be some way to level up your characters as well. Sound is good and level design is also really nice. Overall I had fun with this and look forward to more.

[RunningWild]

The Good: Intro song kinduva a hot jam.

The Bad: Gameplay wise it feels like a mess. Movement is extremely slippery, I can just mash X or Y with Scarlett and essentially combo common enemies to infinity. Her dashing drop kick has got to be the worst moves I've ever seen, it takes forever to recover. The complete lack of hitstun on the boss I fought (Baroness) is just absolute nonsense and drags out the fight when you can hit her maybe once or twice at a time for pixels worth of damage.

The Ugly: I'm not going to sugarcoat it, this games sprite quality is extremely low compared to any beat'em up from the 90's. Sprites are small, lack detail and they animate poorly. The use of certain effects like vector light beams and overlay filters on things like explosions just clashes super hard with a 2D pixel art game and makes it look cheap. Also don't get me started on that UI... it is absolutely disgusting, especially it's font use.

The biggest offender though are damage numbers. Why? lmao

[Reban]

I don´t think it was the best idea to go for a NES feel in gameplay and graphics, It´s such middle ground, I would have tried something a bit more ambitious, more definetly like 16 bits
That said I´ll support the game hoping the franchise gets more love, I really miss a good nostalgia G.I.Joe game

[RunningWild]

Originally posted by Reban:

I don´t think it was the best idea to go for a NES feel in gameplay and graphic

??? Nothing about this game even remotely resembles a NES game.