Mutant Mudds Super Challenge (Wii U eShop)
Also available for 3DS and cross-buy.
The original Mutant Mudds was a decent old-school platformer, Super Challenge ups the ante and goes for high difficulty and a death counter to rub it in your face how bad you are. The main character is equipped with a bad gun and a bad jetpack, but the player can choose either a less bad gun or a less bad jetpack to make things a little bit easier. There isn't anything new aside from a couple of enemies, so Super Challenge is basically what the Japanese Super Mario Bros. 2 (a.k.a. The Lost Levels) was for Super Mario Bros.
Actually, there is a bunch of bosses now, but they are neither fair or entertaining. The "secret" levels hide 20 additional characters who are celebrities in the indie scene, but they all play the same, so don't get excited when you read that Commander Video and Shantae are in Super Challenge. Checkpoints replenish your health and the time limit, but this feature can be disabled in the options. All in all, only consider this game if you can handle platformers above medium difficulty.
Controls | 10 | Everything works as intended and is pixel-perfect. No new abilities since the first game. |
Gameplay | 2D platforming that is targeting skilled players and makes this fact abundantly clear with world 1 already. |
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Story | The Mutant Mudds universe didn't have much of an identity and Super Challenge doesn't change that. |
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Single-player | Targeting skilled players is one thing, but that doesn't excuse unfair sections and bosses that are poorly designed. |
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Multiplayer | Not available. |
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Graphics | Purposefully highly pixelated. Art style is consistent, technical execution is flawless. |
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Sound | The retro-inspired soundtrack is nice to listen to. Not Mega Man quality or anything like that, but good. |
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Value | 40 short levels and five bosses. The length gets stretched with high difficulty. |
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Replay Value | There isn't anything memorable here. There is a death counter and online leaderboard, so that's that. |
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Score | 6 | Super Challenge gets done what it set out to do. That's fine, but it's obviously not ambitious. |
Legend11 correctly predicted that GTA IV (360+PS3) would outsell SSBB. I was wrong.
A Biased Review Reloaded / Open Your Eyes / Switch Gamers Club