Super Comboman has been available on PC for a while now, in fact, my friend reviewed it here a couple of years ago.  Now you can download the Smash Edition for PS4 and Xbox One (reviewed on PS4 here).  I don’t know what’s different about the Smash Edition, as I never played the original game.  You’ll play as Struggles, a portly guy with a talking fanny pack who is trying to earn money by working at the DodoCo Contruction Company to pay off the mortgage for his house where he and his little brother live.  And he’ll beat up and pummel all manner of baddies in the process in this 2-D brawler platformer.

Struggles can run, jump, block, and do a double jump, as well as fight bad guy with punches and other attacks.  You have light, quick punches and slow strong punches.  The strong punch button can knock enemies back as well as break walls, but be careful because using these stronger moves drains a stamina meter, and it’ll refill over time, so watch out for that.  You’ll have a particular task in each stage to do, but really all you need to concentrate on in making it to the end of the stage and beating up all the bad guys in your way.

As you defeat enemies and break objects, you’ll earn coins.  Spend these coins at the shop to buy new moves and perks.  Perks are especially important because they include things like higher defense, but they’ll only activate when you have a certain combo number achieved by hitting enemies and objects in a row.  So it’s important to always keep a combo going.  Luckily the game has plenty of destructible objects to do just that, but sometimes it doesn’t seem there’s enough to hit to keep your perks up.  In each level are hidden stickers you can find and keep in an album, as well as a training room where you can practice moves on a variety of enemies.

The paper cut-out graphics are charming and the simplicity is a welcome change, but the gameplay can be repetitive and it gets ridiculously hard around the fourth stage or so.  But if you like classic side-scrolling brawlers, you may want to give this a try anyway.

Kid Factor:

Super Comboman: Smash Edition is rated E-10 with ESRB descriptors of Fantasy Violence and Comic Mischief.  Even though you punch all manner of people, the graphics are very cartoony and everything looks like a sticker book come to life.  In fact, when you wallop an enemy really hard, they flip around like a flat piece of paper.  There is some slightly crude humor here and there, like a taunt move where your character wiggles his rear and says, “Look at my butt!”  Reading skill is helpful for some of the text, and younger players may find later levels a bit too difficult.

Tags: Game Reviews