Blast Brigade vs. the Evil Legion of Dr. Cread

Review

Blast Brigade vs. the Evil Legion of Dr. Cread is a 2D metroidvania that is also a great parody of 80’s spy/action movies. After a plane crash, captain Jeff Jefferson and his crew of BLAST agents find themselves in the tropical island of Dr. Cread and his evil legion who are enslaving the natives and building a secret weapon. Together with professor Santiago De Armas, Jeff must stop Dr. Cread evil plan and defeat his armies of robots, cyborgs and hybrid monsters.

As mentioned above, Blast Brigade heavily relies on comedy from the first minutes. I don’t mind games that don’t take themselves too seriously, but when the same comedy repeats itself over and over through multiple cutscenes it simply stops being funny to me. Take for example Metal Slug, which I was reminded about while playing this game. It has a few moments of humor and grotesque situations in each mission, but it never becomes excessive. Of course, I understand this can be subjective and some may actually enjoy Blast Brigade’s constant use of humor, but for me it stopped being funny after a few hours.

Luckily, the gameplay is so good that will make you forget about the story. Dr.Cread’s island is a tropical paradise made of jungles, villages, temples and prisons connected through non-linear paths which often require some backtracking to unlock new roads that were previously inaccessible. The level design isn’t really complex like the ones seen in more famous metroidvania games, but it’s certainly varied in terms of biomes and art style. You can fast travel between each location using your motorbike, and there is also a simple base building mechanic that unlocks new options to upgrade your gear. There are also many platforming sections and puzzles requiring some good precision timing and use of different abilities. Fortunately, it’s nothing too frustrating for someone who already has some basic experience with challenging platform/metroidvania games, though the save points are often too far from each other and this can become an issue for a more inexperienced player who dies often and is forced to replay long sections.

Jeff has multiple weapons at his disposal, such as a machine gun, a shotgun and a grenade launcher that cannot only be used against enemies, but also to unlock some blocked paths. As a typical side scroller/metroidvania, you can shoot in any direction, and enemies will come from any direction. Controls are simple to learn and feel very fluid using a controller (which is the recommended input for this kind of game). The coolest gameplay mechanic though is the one that allows you to unlock new characters while progressing through the story and switch between them on the go. This is often encouraged in a different variety of situations, such as when solving puzzles or during certain boss fights, since each character has its own set of weapons and abilities. There are many boss fights against deadly cyborgs and giant monstrosities who use different combat strategies, always offering an intense and growing challenge. You can increase your abilities through the PDA device as well as use the gold coins to upgrade your gear, though if you die you lose all your money and need to collect it again in the place you died (kinda like Dark Souls).

Visually, the game is very attractive, with a vibrant color palette and cartoonish character design. While they certainly look pretty and colorful, many 2D backgrounds look rather simple from a closer vantage point, and some are even repeated. That said, it’s impressive to see an indie metroidvania game with fully-voiced characters, and despite the excessive comedy tone, it’s incredibly well done.

While Blast Brigade vs. the Evil Legion of Dr. Cread doesn’t innovate the genre, it’s still an engaging and quite challenging metroidvania with some fun run ‘n gun action. There is great variety in terms of enemies and locations, as well multiple secrets and collectables to find. Its humorous dialogues probably won’t be the funniest you ever heard, but at least there are no G.I. Jane 2 jokes (yet).

Review written by Sonic Punk for Zeepond.com

Blast Brigade vs The Evil Legion of Dr. Cread