You’re an archeologist at sea, but a shipwreck lands you in the ancient underwater fortress of Behlam.  Now equipped with a robot ‘Buddy’ you must explore the maze like corridors of caves and underwater lakes in this 2-D platforming adventure similar to titles like Metroid.  It’s available on all current game consoles and PC, but reviewed on Switch here.

Right off the bat, you have a lot of moves at your disposal.  You can run, jump, climb certain walls, shoot in different directions, and more.  As you explore the mazes, you’ll find upgrades that’ll help you reach previously inaccessible areas.  These include bombs, charged shots, and others.

Beside you at all times is a flying robot buddy.  You can take control of this buddy at any time, or let a second player join in and control it for some co-op fun.  Your robot buddy is handy for scouting out new areas, especially since most caves are so dark you can’t see very far in front of you.  Your buddy comes with a radar for scanning important objects, and it can even move certain blocks, among other things.

I really liked the 16-bit style early 90’s computer pixel graphics, even if they go overboard with the blues, purples, and reds, which makes it hard to see sometimes.  But I had a hard time getting into this one because of the steep learning curve.  Right off the bat, enemies take multiple hits and are pretty aggressive.  Even the simple ones that climb on walls can fall from the ceiling on you!  And you can’t take very many hits at first either.  Luckily when you die, you start back at the last door you came from.  But this leads into another problem I had with the game.  The save points are few and far between in compared to other games of this ilk, and it makes it a chore to find them if you want to stop playing.  The game isn’t bad, but because of the steep learning curve and lack of frequent save points, it didn’t pull me in the way other games in this genre do, like Shantae or Axiom Verge.

Kid Factor:

Outbuddies DX is rated M for Mature with an ESRB descriptor of Strong Language.  Right off the bat they drop the f-bomb in the text, and there are plenty of monsters to shoot, so there’s some pixelated violence, too.  Reading skill is needed for the text, and younger players and less experienced gamers may find it too difficult.  Luckily a second player can take control of the robot buddy without too much consequence.

Tags: Game Reviews