NES-style Mega Man returns, kind of.
When a recreation wears its inspiration so clearly on its sleeve, direct comparisons between the 2 are inevitable. Such is the case with Trophy, an unabashed Mega Man clone, but in addition a reliable one, for probably the most half. Whereas the soar and shoot motion stays largely intact, the signature weapon upgrades are noticeably absent. Happily, that deviation would not detract overmuch from Trophy’s high quality. What does, nevertheless, is reasonable, irritating enemy placement and pretty rudimentary degree design.
The mixture of excellent man Dr. Sword and his robotic good friend Beeper, Trophy (the titular preventing robotic) runs and weapons by means of a complete of eight preliminary phases and a ultimate degree that unlocks after clearing them. You possibly can select which of the phases to play and full them in any order, however some like Practice and Forest are simpler than others. A pair are downright merciless when it comes to their enemy placement and even the checkpoints the place you spawn after dying. Whereas the phases themselves really feel very acquainted to this lifelong Blue Bomber fan, they’re additionally pretty spinoff and even repetitive, the aforementioned Practice degree being notably boring. Every stage ends with a big boss battle, and these vary from manageable to difficult and even maddening.
Working in its favor is that the controls really feel fairly strong; leaping and capturing down all method of robotic opposition is basically satisfying all through. An odd hit field round your character means you will land some tough platforming jumps that you simply might need considered failures but in addition make contact with instant-kill spikes whenever you had been sure you skirted previous. Sadly, there is not any button remapping (or any actual choices in any respect), so that you’re caught with utilizing A to leap and B to shoot.
The music is definitely fairly nice and provides to the 8-bit NES-style nostalgia play. The sound results wouldn’t be misplaced in a Capcom or Konami title from that period, and the visuals are crisp. With reference to efficiency, there’s some apparent slowdown when a number of enemies and projectiles are on display screen concurrently, but it surely was undoubtedly tolerable and dare I say acquainted.
Hidden secrets and techniques within the phases let you enhance your well being meter or energy up your blaster, including to the scale and power of your bullets. Should you get caught, I discovered it worthwhile to maneuver on to a unique stage and hopefully purchase some upgrades to make earlier challenges simpler to beat. Now if solely there was an improve that allowed you to see every boss’ well being meter…
Trophy is a reliable and satisfying action-platformer that appears and appears like Mega Man, even when it falters in just a few particular areas and doesn’t fairly dwell as much as that comparability. The sport does sufficient to make it value recommending to followers of 8-bit classics of yore, offered you’ll be able to look previous a few of its poor degree design and low-cost deaths. On the finish of the day, I would award it a trophy someplace in between participation and podium.