Straight out of Pittsburgh Pennsylvania comes the “true life” story of Black Forge Coffeehouse baristas Nick and Ashley as they defend the Earth from the Smurglian invasion. One of the cool things Mega Cat Studios prides itself in is making old-school retro games that are playable on classic consoles like the NES or the Sega Genesis. Wouldn’t you know it that Coffee Crisis is playable on Steam and on the Sega Genesis and it looks like a classic beat-em-up arcade game.
That’s the look and feel Mega Cat was going for so it fits the game perfectly. It looks good on Sega but I think graphically it looks really good on Steam. Coffee Crisis will bring the old school gamer back to the good old games of gaming to their days in the arcade, playing classic beat-em-up games with wave upon wave of enemies. The controls are simple enough to pick up from the start but will take some practice if you want to take down the alien invasion.
The first stage/boss of the game involves country music and the spoofed country music star of the level, Skinny Chestknee. The stage has enemies that have been taken over by the aliens like cowgirls, cowboys and the elderly and you’ll have to take them down! The demo was set to the toughest difficulty it could possibly be set to and me and player 2 got pretty far but once the aliens decide they mean business on that difficulty, that’s all she wrote for us.
Controls were pretty straightforward for retro gaming where you had a punch and kick command. You also had punch and kick combo attacks that will come in handy when you need to score some quick/simple knock outs. You can also jump attack, like in most retro beat-em-ups, for quick attacks and smart damage. What I mean by smart damage is jump attack and get the hell out of there!
There were plenty of items to regain health throughout the level similar to pizza in the Ninja Turtles arcade games as well as a special attack that drained health the more you used it, also like the Ninja Turtles arcade games. There are power-ups in the game and one that caught my eye, the Six Demon Blend coffee is like a starman from Super Mario that allows you to be super powered for a little while.
The interesting thing is the coffee actually exists in real life so you would be able to get your hands on Six Demon Blend if you ever saw fit to. Pax East this year felt like it was the year of the retro beat-em-up and Coffee Crisis follows suit.
If you happen to get your hands on this, you will be brought back into the past of the Sega Genesis/retro arcade days where you and your friends could sit down and play a game, beat the daylights out of everything that came at you and enjoy some pizza bagels on the side! Good for Mega Cat Studios for bringing people who might have missed their chance to jump back into the retro scene with this great old school classic feel as well as other classic old school games!