Nintendo Scene

Imagine if the Pocket Gameboy was 16bit and there was a game mixing Super Meat Boy and Metal Slug. Well imagine no more because Gunpowder on The Teeth: Arcade (GOTTA) is here to help you die a thousand deaths as you run, gun and fall to your doom over and over.

Tough as nails doesn’t cut it, more like tough as diamonds. The ruthless difficulty means if there’s one jump you can’t work out then that’s it you’re stuck and can’t progress any further through the 24 levels, old school to the extreme. I think the developers will be gleefully chuckling away to themselves at the thought of the gamers slamming themselves into brick walls and dying over and over until they want to do the same in real life. But I must admit that normally I can’t be bothered with games that are needlessly hard as I want to play fun games but I kept coming back and then started to actually have fun. With each of my 100s of runs I slowly got used to the way the game plays and learnt the levels, getting further and further into a level, then before long I was on my helicopter saying sayonara to the war zone that I’d skillfully traversed. Then I was straight onto the next level ready to die a thousand deaths.

GOTTA features precision platforming where everything is out to kill you, barbed wire, enemy soldiers, mine fields, bottomless pits, even your own escape route of a helicopter can slice you into a million pieces if you touch the rotors as you hop aboard on your escape. There are many times when you have to take a leap of faith as there is no clear why to proceed, this often means you leap to your doom. You can wall jump but only once and it takes some time to get used to the physics. Levels are short and sweet a checkpoint however it can still take some time to learn the level and become skilled enough to overcome it. The run n gun aspect has you shooting footsoldiers, using grenades on soldier carrying vans and placing bombs on what appear to be radar vehicles. Enemies are often hidden behind bushes and will start shooting before you can see them but you do get an auditory cue when there’s an enemy nearby. As you progress you unlock more heroes which have different types of grenades and you switch between as you die. 

I enjoyed the ‘what if’ style graphics but it’s pretty hard to see the enemies and barbed wire with the 16bit style monochrome graphics but luckily you can change the colours of the barbed wire and have enemies flash however those are the only difficulty options in this brutal game. A nice touch is the streams of bodies left behind through all your runs which can end up in huge piles of dead enemies and seeing your soldiers strung up in barbed wire.

Each of the five areas based across the 24 levels has a different song with thumping old school beats that could’ve come straight from an Amiga game. The sound effects are far less noticeable but got nicely with the whole retro affair.

GOTTA is not a long game but like many games from back in the day you may never complete. It’s joy comes from short bursts perfectly suited to the Switch. At only £4.49 (with 50% off at time of launch if you own any other Forever Entertainment game which you’re missing out if you don’t) it’s hard not to recommend if you like Super Meat Boy style platformers and run n gun games. 

Gunpowder on The Teeth: Arcade is available digitally on Nintendo Switch eShop from 25th July for £4.49/€4.99/$4.49 and as if writing is 50% off if you own a Forever Entertainment title. Thank you to Forever Entertainment for providing the review code.