Bot Gaiden | PS4 Review

Extreme speed running is here my friends! In the form of a tough as nails Ninja Gaiden inspired speed runner that has a hint of Mega Man thrown in for good measure. It seems that this future world of robotic lifeforms is in a dire predicament with the tyrannical Giorqio and his henchmen stealing it's power source. The golden skulls. In order to best this army of bogus bots two red and blue cyber ninjas named Robyu, and Bytron are called upon to save the day. Utilizing power-up skills meant to make fast work of enemies, and even faster work of stage traversal they have their work cut out for them. The ultimate goal being to get back what was taken, and destroy each boss in a timed stage by stage speed run.

Past the opening cutscenes, and story explanation lies a game that pushes the speed runner genre beyond it's boundaries. Set to the tune of four different difficulty settings including Casual, Normal, Hardcore, and Ludicrous you get to choose how hard your playthrough will be. Allowing for single player, and local co-op if you have a friend bold enough to take on the challenge alongside you ...

Built like the infuriating stages of the old NES 'Ninja Gaiden' games, and looking like a Saturday morning cartoon from the 90's this boss run battle that is "Bot Gaiden" is setup with speedy playthroughs in mind. Placing hazards, pitfalls, and problematic lesser enemies in a gauntlet of platforms placed before a final boss room. To navigate efficiently you must put to use your cyber ninja abilities to deal with the threats at hand while hastily making progress against a timer that is constantly counting up. Utilizing power-ups you gain access to things like throwing stars, jet packs, speed boosts, air slashes, and other tools. The catch being that if you get hit you lose these abilities one at a time per hit. Costing you time and mechanics as you struggle to recoup what you've lost. 

The stages in "Bot Gaiden" are listed via menu much like the bosses from a classic Mega Man game. Complete with a boss image, and three listed rewards per each for time completion goals met. Two minutes will score you the premium prize, three minutes the silver prize, and anything beyond four minutes the bottom tier bonus. All rewards act as cheats building upon and boosting the mechanics to aid you in more efficient runs the second and third go around. The goal in each boss run stage, as previously mentioned, is to make it from start to finish while killing or avoiding lesser bots, avoiding deadly hazards, and making it to the boss room with enough time to clear it for the reward you are seeking. 

The Presentation ...

Bot Gaiden delivers it's hardcore action with a hint of a Saturday morning cartoon art style. Featuring hand drawn, and animated characters among similarly crafted stage elements with special visual effects applied it's a decent looking creation. As clumsy and awkward in appearance as it may be to some, as it were to me initially, it still functions as any game of the kind would allowing for precision movement, and attacks that connect well through environmental collision. There is no floatiness, and speed runs are possible once you learn the layout, of each stage and it's shortcut routes. Sound also has that 90's cartoon vibe completing the era of imagery that the developer was obviously going for. As an added bonus the developer also added three screen filters to choose from including pixels, and CRT scanlines.

The Verdict ...

While I commend the onboard developer for their attempt to do something different the implementation of the initial tutorial is poorly done. They expect you to learn and simultaneously apply all the mechanics in a speed run which does not allow you enough time to take it all in. Even worse still is the fact that the hit stun recovery is not explained in that tutorial. This alone can lead to some cheap deaths from pitfalls. It is also poorly implemented in the functional sense not allowing for enough reaction time in most instances to recover given the speed run nature of gameplay. 

In all honesty due to this game's faults it was one I actually considered ragequitting. I was frustrated by the intro stage so much that I almost threw in the towel and ended my playthrough right there. There's something really off putting about the developer using Ninja Gaiden as inspiration for their stage design. If you've ever played those old games you know, like I do, that it's cheap in a not so good way. That having been said repetition does allow for learning the static placement of bots, and hazards. Making the challenge doable. Having given the game a fair chance in the end I found myself being kind of okay with what is offered. The only downside is the tutorial which could have, and should have been done better.