Shoot Them Down!
I recently got my hands on a copy of Guilt Battle Arena, the crazy solo/multiplayer shoot-em-up game, from the folks at Invincible Cat/ForwardXP. You have the option to play with up to four players in multiplayer games or go after the “story” mode of the game where you’re trying to stop the Dreadful Judge from taking over the galaxy.
You play as one of the four members of the Guilt Patrol and like I just mentioned, you’re trying to take down the Dreadful Judge and his team of evil minions. That can’t be too hard right? Well, the “co-op” mode or the mode I’ve dubbed solo allows for one to two players and has 6 stages as well as a tutorial level. You get the basics of the gameplay in the tutorial, which doesn’t last too long. There are also two clips for your viewing pleasure in co-op mode and they’re the beginning cinematic as well as the ending but you have to unlock them while playing.
Each level has different environmental hazards to watch out for such as the Exploding Cats Factory has exploding cats to deal with as well as Holy Chickens having divine chickens falling from the sky at anytime in the playthrough The objective is to get the highest score possible and score three stars on each level but that is easier said than done. The speed of incoming enemies changes the further along you get in each level so to get a really good score, you’ll have to be on your toes and make smart plays. These plays could be walking in front of an enemy carrying an ax that you can go under or using an environmental hazard to your advantage. Once you realize what enemies you can walk through/in-front of, it will make getting higher scores easier! Some of the enemies that you have to deal with it felt like you had to take a hit or there was no other way around the attack. You have the option of double jumping and dashing, both in the air and on the ground to maneuver, but it still felt like at times there was nothing you could do to avoid getting hit.
I also felt that there were plenty of blind attacks and what I mean by that is during gameplay you get one bullet for your gun to attack the minions as they come at you but you can only go back and forth on the playing field. Then you make a shot and retrieve your bullet and think nothing is coming, only to get hit by an exploding cat jumping onto you or an enemy with a long sword that you can hit until it comes onto the playing field. There were times when my bullet went through multiple enemies but it wouldn’t do it everytme I tried so the consistency on that was an issue too at times.
Guilt Battle Arena also has a Versus mode with quite a few game modes to choose from. It has some of the usual multiplayer games like Last Man Standing, where you try to be the “last man standing” and “Capture the Flag” where you’re trying to get flags from your opponents. It also has some crazy game modes that fit into the game perfectly like Hot Potato Bomb where you need to pass the bomb to your opponent, Chicken Rain where you need to stun the enemy and get them all wet from falling chickens, Rocket Man where shooting your enemy makes them the new target for the rocket, and Cat Mania where exploding cats will be an issue in the board. You can modify the gameplay to have items and different abilities in play such as multiple bullets and a Jetpack and these modifiers really change the game!
While playing, you get to unlock different costumes for your players and this game has a lot of costumes to unlock. They’re mostly the enemies you’ll encounter during gameplay but there are some that are pop culture inspired as well as just interesting. Some of my favorites included the guy dressed like a cheeseburger, the guy who looks remarkably like the Joker, the Devil, the Pope, the Rhino, and the Secret Agent. You will never mistake your character for someone else with all these costumes to pick from!
Guilt Battle Arena is a fun Co-op/Solo/Multiplayer game that has some interesting gameplay modes as you try to achieve the top score. However it has its moments where I feel you need to take damage/out of your control. The graphical style fits the game perfectly for this fun save the world game. How it doesn’t have online multiplayer I’ll never know! It’s these reasons that I’m giving Guilt Battle Arena for the PlayStation 4 an 8/10. I would like to thank Invincible Cat/ForwardXP for the review code.