Hellstuck: Rage With Your Friends Review for Nintendo Switch

Hellstuck: Rage With Your Friends for the Nintendo Switch is a clone of the game Jump King, with one minor caveat being the setting of the game where the player or player(s) have to escape hell by jumping an platforming. The game overall has basic controls, yet it is fun since it uses the same formula as Jump King. Moreover, the game is great as a party game with friends as it is geared towards the multiplayer aspect. As for how the game tries to distance itself from Jump King is the main setting and ending of the game. However, the game itself is targeted to be more of a fun party game that emphasizes frustration trying to make the experience a lot more entertaining. Terror Dog Studios has made an okay game trying to get into the market of hard platforming games, but should have focused on making the game more unique to distance itself from others.

The gameplay for Hellstuck: Rage With Your Friends should of changed something up for the platforming genre that would of made it standout as a whole. One major change the game should have made is introducing another level of depth to the game making it more than a clone at first glance. This level of depth should have included an extra level of depth that could either make the game more fun to play such as introducing special variety modes to the game itself allowing player(s) that chance to play with power ups or abilities in game to make the experience a lot more generalize for the general audience. By going in this direction would make the game more of a party game that makes player(s) rage and make a party more entertaining for the whole. Another direction the game could go into is to add another dimension to the game making it more of a 2.5 effect type platformer. However, the game should lean more heavily into adding some more environmental effects such as messing with the lighting for some the areas or adding in the infamous disappearing and reappearing platforms that are synonymous with the genre. While the lack of creativity from a perspective on gameplay is a detrimental to the replay value of the game the controls are basic and simple enough to make up for it.

In terms of how the game is overall, it plays fine and is catered to be played with friends or on some sort of stream that makes the experience a lot more enjoyable. The controls for the game are quite simplistic with the d-pad on the switch being used for walking and positioning the player’s character in a certain direction or area on a platform. There are only some minor caveats to the game that really make the experience truly awful, and not in the rage inducing way that was intended by the developers. One specific area of the game has a pixel perfect jump that requires the player to land perfectly with the main issue resulting in just that were even though visually a player can land on it with no issues the game will register them as missing the platform entirely. This pixel perfect jump while necessary to some extent can feel unfair due to the visual aspect present in the game. This one aspect while critical to the game’s overall reception is a minor one due to the platformer difficulty making it a nonissue. However, this nonissue is only a major issue to the speed running community overall with this issue being a make it or break it moment in that community. While the controls are set and standard for the genre, with one major issue of the game impacting another community in the gaming sphere the one thing Hellstuck: Rage With Your Friends shines in is in the pixel art presented in the game.

The art direction for the game is quite nice and the pixel art is really high quality allowing the player(s) to see quite the spectacle. The attention to detail in depicting the different levels of hell is quite nice as the different levels are all nicely detailed and offer some environmental storytelling as to describe what level of hell the player is going through. This also bleeds into the designs of the platforms themselves with some having small details that improved the overall quality of game from an artistic perspective. Moreover, the small details also have to be utilized in telling the player(s) about the various platforms they are about to deal with such as more ice like platforms being easily identifiable due the light blue shading for the platforms and shading. This thought process is then used throughout the entire game trying to provide key visual insights to the player(s) in what they have to deal with.

Terror Dog Studios could have done a lot more with the game and really should have expanded the platforming genre by introducing some new gameplay features especially for a game that is catered towards a multiplayer aspect. This is evident as it an almost perfect clone of Jump King, with no imagination trying to change up the formula. Moreover, clones of carious games are by no means uncommon in the gaming sphere they are just seen in a negative light unless they are made well. Hellstuck: Rage With Your Friends is a clone and that is evident in how the game plays, but it is more geared towards multiplayer as its main trait trying to distance itself from the rest of the clone platformers. Another main strength of the game, is the pixel art has a commanding presence as the player(s) will be looking at the screen for quite some time as they play. Overall Terror Dog Studios, has made a decent game and as an indie developer that is more than enough as they do not have the big huge budget triple A companies have. Hellstuck: Rage With Your Friends is a 7/10 game in my opinion, which could become a lot better and truly escape the hell it is stuck in.

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Related: Reviews by Kyle Manila