Assault Android Cactus+
Defense Gelatinous Popsicle-
High score chasers and speedrunners have found the key to happiness in video games. Whereas the plebian plays a game only once, the chasers and runners will replay that game ad nauseum until they break a world record. Why play any other game when you can play Donkey Kong for four hours straight or complete Ocarina of Time blindfolded? These gamers manage to suck dry any fun the game had and then eat the desiccated husk. At least, I assume they enjoy doing this. Otherwise, their ritual is some sort of masochistic torture lifestyle.
For the high score chasers, Assault Android Cactus+ (AAC) will keep you entertained for the entire year, or maybe a month. I don’t know how time operates for you all. For the rest of us, you’ll be looking at around five hours of playtime, ten at most. Developer Witch Beam has refined the gameplay and presentation so expertly that any gamer will have a blast, no matter how much you end up playing. Assault Android Cactus+ is a must-have twin-stick shooter, but for those without an obsession for leaderboards, the experience will feel short-lived.
What is it?
Assault Android Cactus+ separates itself from other twin-stick shooters by giving you unlimited lives but one battery. This battery steadily depletes over the course of the level, and if you or any of your co-op partners “dies,” the battery loses more energy. Defeating a wave of enemies will drop a green power-up which will recharge a portion of your reserves. The more you die, the faster you will have to dispatch your robot enemies to stay in the game until you’ve defeated all waves. If the battery empties out, you’ll restart the level.
Unlike your mindless robot nemeses, your playable characters are androids, all named after items on a grocery list written by a man having a stroke. Whether you choose Cactus, Aubergine, Lemon, Starch, Holly, or another, each character sports a primary and secondary weapon. Your primary weapon fires endlessly and upgrades as you collect bits from fallen enemies. Hitting the ZL button will cause you to dodge and swap your primary for your secondary weapon, which has a higher damage output. Once the secondary empties and cools down, you’ll dodge back into your primary weapon. Power-ups will occasionally drop from enemies to add firepower/speed or freeze robots. These prove especially helpful when you die and your primary weapon degrades back to level one.
The main campaign features 25 levels, including five boss battles. Beating this will unlock a hard mode of sorts, labeled “Campaign+,” as well as a Boss Rush option. Additionally, you have “Infinite Drive” which sends you against hordes of enemies and bosses until you collapse or reach Layer 50. A “Daily Drive” acts much the same as Infinite Drive but will end after Layer 10. All modes can be played with up to four players, and each mode will award you with currency. This currency can then be used to buy unique options to change gameplay (such as an isometric or first-person perspective), art, or information about AAC’s larger universe.
What’s good?
- Dynamic stages carry the game’s intensity and entertainment value. For instance, the first stage sees you battling robots as you ride an elevator, giving you little room to maneuver. Once the elevator reaches the bottom, you have a larger space, allowing you to evade an increasing number of enemies. Several stages will similarly change over time, and others will have stage hazards like conveyor belts, lasers, and fires. Even the static stages are designed to keep you on your toes, although there are a few expected duds. The boss fights, conversely, are uniformly spectacular.
- Despite your general mission to decimate waves of enemies, each of the androids incentivize tearing through metal in different ways. Cactus is your most standard fighter, unleashing damage both up close and from afar. With her shotgun and plasma field, Coral is best suited in the middle of the action, blasting large clusters of robots in one go. Shiitake’s rail gun can tear through multiple enemies but is slow, and without her mines, she struggles to stay alive in close quarters. None of the characters seem noticeably weaker or stronger than the others, although I’ve found Starch to be a beast against bosses.
- The story and characters deserve their own Netflix adaptation, even if AAC offers so little of them. There are only four cutscenes in the entire game, but the dialogue is smart and goofy. The leading ladies show their personality with their one-liners as they battle enemies, their conversations with the bosses (each unique to the character you choose before the fight), and their background stories. They are sassy, silly, and badass, just as Isaac Asimov intended them to be.
What’s bad?
- One button controls dodging and changing to your secondary weapon, and it feels awkward. Because the bosses and enemies can make the game a bullet hell at times, dodging is indispensable. However, if your secondary weapon overheated, you’ll be barred from dodging until it finishes cooling down. During more intense skirmishes, you’ll want to dodge but keep your primary weapon going, so you’ll have to dodge twice to keep your loadout. One could argue that this design choice makes you more mindful when you dodge, but it more often acts as a nuisance when you want to focus on the firefight and not fiddling with your weapons.
- Unless you like chasing for high scores, AAC’s Drive modes grow stale quickly. Both modes feature dynamic stages, with barriers falling in and out, creating new obstacles or protection. However, the arenas, themselves, maintain their general circular structure, so you’ll often find yourself circle-strafing to avoid fire, clear enemies safely, and collect powerups. For most gamers, it’ll be fun to try a few times.
- The graphics tend toward the uglier side. The game is not a looker on any system, but the Switch version makes things a little blurrier and a bit more jagged in places. Most everything is easy enough to see, and it runs fine, so you won’t die to cheap tricks, but you’ll be excused if you wrote this game off as another generic twin-shooter based on the still images.
What’s the verdict?
All games cater to a specific audience. Great games satisfy their target group and manage to welcome others. Assault Android Cactus+ will delight arcade enthusiasts and those hungering for the tops of leaderboards. For others, the game offers a brief blast of entertainment. Its flaws are minimal; its strengths are plenty; and if there was more to it, it could claw itself to the top leaderboards of my own reviews. As it is now, I’m left wanting a beefier sequel.
Arbitrary Statistics:
- Score: 8.5
- Time Played: Over five hours
- Number of Players: 1-4
- Games Like It on Switch: Cuphead, Enter the Gungeon