I am unable to fairly resolve if Antonblast is damaging genius or just a bit bit too chaotic for its personal good. Following in Wario’s most well-liked mode of 2D platforming – aka: slamming Anton’s thick shoulders, gritted chin and whirling, Taz the Tasmanian Satan-style hurricane legs into each impediment going quite than a well mannered bop on the pinnacle a la Mario, Antonblast is massive on screenshake, exploding paraphernalia and pinballing via ranges like a raging battering ram. It is splendidly frenetic, as the 2 ranges in its Steam Subsequent Fest demo make plain.
Antonblast
Developer: Summitsphere
Writer: Summitsphere
Launch: third December 2024
Obtain the demo on: Steam
However it’s additionally like making an attempt to rein in a bucking bronco quite a lot of the time, and I at all times really feel like on the verge of dropping management. I each find it irresistible and hate it concurrently, so I suppose it is a good factor, then, that there is a demo for it for the time being, as you, too, can see if it is the proper of platformer for you forward of its launch this December.
The primary stage within the demo feels prefer it could possibly be a protracted misplaced Wario Land stage, albeit with the velocity and wrecking ball vitality of Sonic the Hedgehog. With all his booze stolen by the satan – who’s enraged that Anton has redder pores and skin than him for some motive – Anton units off via his ramshackle metropolis to bash himself a path to hell, careening into enemies and obstacles that burst into showers of poker chips on influence – a factors forex you’ll be able to’t actually do something with within the demo, alas, however I would not be stunned if it ended up getting used for some sort of devilish bargaining money within the ultimate sport.
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Anton has quite a lot of strikes at his disposal – a charging slam, a wind-up hammer swing, and holding down on a slope will flip him right into a livid little bowling ball, permitting him to roll his approach via tiny gaps which are blocked, appropriately, by traces of bowling pins. He can even slide via different, emptier little crevasses with out turning into a raging Morph Ball, although the most effective little flourish of animation has to go to Anton’s floor pound, which lets him each slam into teleporting dumpster bins or crunch his cartoon tooth proper into the pavement. All of which feels fairly good beneath the thumbs – there is a frenetic, flying by the seat of your pants vitality to the best way Anton strikes via every stage, and it is a feeling that is solely heightened when he lands on particular soar pads that ship him into the background of a stage, the place he is even smaller and tinier to manoeuvre throughout the town’s rooftops.
Enemies are largely simply there to be steamrolled in these early levels, so you’ll be able to bash via them with largely careless abandon. However there are additionally moments the place you will have to pause, soar and press X for Anton to carry out a sort of spinning soar that lets him attain increased platforms than his common soar – and it is a mixture of button presses that I discovered at all times introduced Anton’s momentum to a grinding halt. More often than not, this is not actually that massive of a deal breaker, as you are free to take your time and strategy its challenges at your individual tempo – which within the demo prolonged to discovering a collection of massive button switches to detonate colour-coded obstacles blocking my path.
On the finish of a stage, nonetheless, when Anton is compelled to set off an enormous ‘Blissful Hour’ bell and make a mad sprint for the exit in simply a few minutes, the necessity for a extra exact sort of platforming exposes some cracks in Antonblast’s all-encompassing chaos. I get that the added stress might be meant to make every thing really feel much more fast-paced than it already is, however I might argue that it additionally wants an total tightening of its controls to go together with it, so it would not danger working straight right into a stable wall of frustration.
The second stage, although, was fairly a bit jollier, not least because it came about within the sewers to present us a style of how Anton handles underwater (fairly splendidly, I believed), but additionally since you’re given a Rambi-style swordfish companion at sure moments, which took me proper again to taking part in Donkey Kong Nation on my SNES. Developer Summitsphere have gotten that Rambi-style motion right down to a tee (based mostly on my barely shoddy reminiscence, at the very least), and if that wasn’t sufficient to present you heat nostalgic flashbacks, then Anton was additionally fired out of a number of quickfire cannons at common factors throughout that stage as nicely, additional strengthening that DK connection.
Based mostly on simply this brief glimpse, I believe I am roughly on board with seeing the remainder of Anton’s journey to hell. I’ve my reservations, positive, however there is a Ren and Stimpy cartoonishness to every thing right here that is additionally simply too good to disregard. In case you loved the equally rambunctious Pizza Tower final yr, then you definitely’ll nearly positively discover tons to love right here as nicely.
