Product Info

Platform

Switch, PC

Publisher

Tribute Games

Developer

Tribute Games

Genre

Action, Adventure, Platform

Players

1

File Size (Minimum)

261 MB

Release Date (NA)

Jul 21, 2020

Purchase From

eShop

Steam

When watching the beautiful 8-bit graphics of Panzer Paladin load on my screen, I was excited to finally play this on my PC. It reminded me of playing Mega Man at my cousin’s house in the ‘80s with the cheesy but lovey dialogue, the 8-bit graphics, and, of course, the chiptunes music. Then, things suddenly turned highly anticlimactic. It’s clear that developer Tribute Games put much time and effort into this game. That said, in this era where indie studios are being influenced by classic platformers like Castlevania, Metroid, and Mega Man, they didn’t try to push the envelope enough to make a truly enjoyable game like others have. Everything about it has been recycled: the game design, mechanics, and even the title itself uses an alliteration (Mega Man to Panzer Paladin). Panzer Paladin isn’t bad, per say; it’s just that nothing about it is memorable.

Classic “mech and pilot saves the day” story

This story is set in a future where the planet is being attacked by the dark prince Ravenous and his gang of uniquely powered miscreants that act as weapon keepers. An android named Flame and her Mech named Grit have been dispatched by the Earth’s defense organization to stop the invasion. The duo must journey across the world to each villain’s theme-crafted country to fight and vanquish them. The story is very thin, honestly (just like Mega Man, truly), but if you can bear playing the game until its conclusion, the narrative does take some interesting twists and turns that are enjoyable to watch.

The symphony of 8-bit goodness and the bland gameplay

First, let’s start with the good. From the anime-like opening theme onward, the music is sheer bliss! It was done by Patrice Bourgeault, and you can tell this guy knows his stuff! Each level has chiptunes music that has that variety that invokes the memory of my 8-bit gaming days. There is even menacing music for the midboss before you face him that is quite memorable. The electric music that you hear from country to country that you traverse in your mech fits very nicely. Usually, for indie games, you hear the same repetitive music, but in this instance, the composer took the time to create a very robust music library for this game.

Now to the bad: You will know in the first ten minutes that this is a clear copy of the Mega Man formula. There is a group of unique bosses, and you select which one to go after first. You play through their level, defeat them, and then go to the next, but that is where the similarity ends. There is no particular pattern of order that you must take to beat the bosses. In the Mega Man games, you can make your gaming experience either incredibly hard or reasonably difficult based on the order you fight the bosses, whereas for this game, it doesn’t matter. All paths you take lead to the same experience fighting the bosses, making it a very wash, dry and repeat experience, which will, in time, lead to your inevitable boredom with this game. It’s a shame because the game is short, taking only an hour or so to beat, so replayability is important.

The graphics and platforming mechanics will also remind you instantly of that great Capcom classic, except on a much easier playing field. This platformer is filled with many jumps where going from point A to B is totally stationary. They require little-to-no timing to succeed, making them not challenging at all. There are no enemies to block the jump, or, if there is, throwing your weapons easily kills them. More of the offensive obstacles are saved for the rare times that you must get out of Grit and use Flame; for Grit, none of these interesting scenarios exist. Perhaps for new gamers, it may be a bit of a challenge, but for Mega Man or even Super Mario Bros. veterans, (where you have to get the timing right at the end of the level to even get maximum bonus points) in the words of Darth Vader, it’s “all too easy.” You even have a special pogo jump that you can do that is akin to DuckTales or Shovel Knight, but unfortunately, Panzer Paladin doesn’t use this ability to create some terrific platforming experiences like those titles did. It’s used mostly as just another way to attack, sadly.

Now, the ugly: the enemies or lack thereof. The regular foes you face are easy to beat. They mainly just try to swipe their weapon at you and have no unique attacks at all. They are also very poor at blocking or parrying. There are ring-monster-looking creatures that are visually cool, but that is the only memorable enemy. The rest are easily forgettable and are recycled on levels far too often. There are many instances where only two types of enemies show up in a level, and they are the exact same two that appeared on a different boss’s level.

On the other hand,the bosses look great, and you can tell that much effort (perhaps too much) was put towards their design and execution. Each one has its origins in popularly known myth or folklore, such as the gorgon Medusa, the witch Baba Yaga, Nian the lion-like beast, Boeoegg the snowman, and Mictlantecuhtli the god of the dead. The programmers just did not take the time to extend their love and care crafting the bosses to the basic enemies. Anyway, the bosses deal out some interesting attacks, and some of their attacks are visually amazing to see. For example, when fighting Pazuzu, his elongated body follows him as he dives in and out of the screen, and even curls along the platform itself at one point in the fight. The latter attack requires some finesse to dodge. Regrettably, it takes no real skill, strategy, or time to recognize a pattern to defeat some of the bosses. Simply attack, jump, or stand still to avoid the boss’s attack, and then attack again. The Nian fight is arguably the worst offender, where you can literally stand in one spot and almost never get touched.

Save points exist throughout each level, along with one right before you fight each boss. This makes retrying the boss easy to defeat if you (doubtfully) happen to die. There is one nice old school gaming element, though. If you happen to die, you must restart the game from the very beginning, making things a touch more difficult.

The weapons…more like ONE weapon

The weapons system is a key element in Mega Man games. Here, however, the system truly misses the mark. Basically, the weapons in Panzer Paladin are all the same. They just look different or deal a bit more damage than another. Honestly, it’s difficult to see a difference in damage between them. I only switched weapons if one gave me a little more distance from the enemy, giving me space to more easily dodge attacks.

The thing that made Mega Man so awesome was that once you defeated a boss, you acquired their unique power that made future boss battles much more manageable. In Mega Man 2, you needed Metal Man’s Metal Blades to defeat Bubble Man, Air Man’s Air Shooter to defeat Crash Man, and so on. Sometimes, the last weapon you picked up didn’t necessarily work on the upcoming boss. You had to go through your weapon inventory to figure out which was most effective. You don’t have that problem solving in Panzer Paladin. Once I defeated a boss, I purposefully saved that weapon for the next boss. However, upon loading the weapon for the boss, I saw no effectiveness in its use. In fact, there isn’t even a pattern that you need to follow because any weapon can defeat any boss. This shallowness was the most frustrating aspect of the game. The story places such an emphasis on the weapons found throughout, but the gameplay doesn’t reflect that. Each weapon breaks over time due to basic use, and none of them are special, except in how they look.

There are areas where you can recharge a weapon to renew its strength, but they are so few and far between that the creators either should have put far more in or had none at all. Not that they are even needed in the game. There are plenty of new weapons to be found, but there is just nothing empowering about them, save one thing. There is an ability called “break” that will unleash a weapon’s true power. That power can be an attack or a healing effect, or it can even allow for flight for a short time. The downside is that the weapon must be on the verge of being used up and broken in order to tap into the ability. Moreover, it’s only good for one shot. It would have been far more interesting to have these weapons perform these special attacks and wear out over time due to their repeated usage than to just have them wear out as a result of basic attacks. You can be so focused on attacking the enemy that you often forget about the break weapon ability, and the weapon will automatically be destroyed with regular use.

Lastly, there is an element of the game that if you are carrying too many weapons, you must face a reoccurring mid-boss. It’s an enjoyable battle at first, but after facing him the third or fourth time in one game, he becomes a bit of an annoyance.

You need a mechanic for the Mechanic

In addition to offensive moves, Grit has a dash ability that can be used to evade enemy attacks. It comes with a nice graphical effect. However, the move truly isn’t utilized much in the game except for some specific points, making it mostly useless. That said, speed runners will find that the dash is quite handy for getting past enemies in order to beat the game quicker. Beyond the dash, Grit can upgrade his abilities, but that only happens a total of five times throughout the entire game. Moreover, the upgrades only include an energy boost (health) for Grit when, in all honesty, it is Flame that needs the energy upgrades more than Grit.

Speaking of Flame, it’s her gameplay mechanics that is truly the joy of this game. The sections where you have to disembark Grit to get through a section of the level is very enjoyable. These sections are difficult and may take some practice to get through. She uses a whip to reach platforms that Grit himself can’t reach. Plus, she’s so small that if Grit is destroyed during a boss battle, her smallness becomes an asset, since the larger enemy attacks are too grandiose to even touch her. If only the Flame solo adventures were incorporated into the levels more, while also letting you level up her whip attacks to include special attacks, along with truly different weapons for Flame and Grit, it would have offered a deeper gameplay experience.

Mega Meh

So, is Panzer Paladin worth the price of admission ($19.99 on Nintendo Switch and Steam)? Well, although it does make use of the Mega Man formula, it doesn’t really do much with it and even lacks the elements that made those games memorable. Still, at least it captures the look and sound of games from the 8-bit era. In short, wait until a flash sale and you have time to kill because you could easily beat this game within an hour or so. Better yet, just play Mega Man 11 and enjoy!