Product Info

Platform

Switch, Xbox One, PC

Publisher

HYPETRAIN DIGITAL

Developer

LEAP Game Studios

Genre

Action, Adventure, Arcade, Beat-'em-up, Fighting

Players

1-4

File Size (Minimum)

5.8 GB

Release Date (NA)

Nov 2, 2021

Purchase From

eShop

Microsoft Store

Steam

Epic Games

Tunche is a game which combines both beat’em up and roguelite elements. It was developed by LEAP Game Studios, based out of Peru, with the help of its publisher, HypeTrain Digital. The game, set in an Amazonian jungle, features charming artwork and follows five different characters on their journey to find Tunche, a Peruvian mythological evil spirit that roams the jungle. Choose a hero to best suit your style and play the game solo or co-op to explore the four procedurally generated worlds. Unravel the mystery of the jungle and take your hero straight to Tunche.

Punch for Tunche

You start the game in a campsite that serves as your base of operations and pick your character from five choices. Nayra is an Amazon warrior who fights with a spear and with magic. Rumi is a shaman with a small red bird. Pancho is the stocky and strong physical brawler, and Qaru, a nimble fighter with black feathers as arms. Finally, there’s Hat Kid from A Hat in Time with her top hat and magical umbrella. Each of the characters is available from the start of the game.

Movement by each character is quite fluid whether you’re dashing, jumping, or air dashing. While the game is fairly simple in regards to button mashing, each character has their own unique normal attack, magic attack, and special (once unlocked). For example, Nayra utilizes her spear for her normal attacks and launches projectiles from a snake on her arm for her magic attack, making it a ranged attack (each depleting her mana bar). Mana can be recovered during stage battles by getting the blue orbs dropped by enemies. Each hero has a special move which can only be used after filling the special bar and generally consists of a powerful area-of-effect (AOE) move to help when overwhelmed. Attacks can be combined in different ways to create combos, which yield higher scores and rewards. When battling enemies, critical attacks, which deal more damage, can be performed by hitting enemies from behind.

Next to your hero’s portrait is a red health bar that starts at 100 and decreases as you take damage. It can only be recovered through a potion, which is limited to one per attempt unless upgraded to two later in game, getting red orbs that appear after defeating enemies, or through special abilities such as life steal. Upon defeat, your hero awakens in the campsite, only for you to embark on your quest again, rinse and repeat, as expected for a rogue-like game. If playing in co-op mode (up to four players locally), there is an option to revive teammates for a certain amount of gold upon reaching a particular stage. There is a clear advantage to playing with friends due to the party’s collective HP (likely to mitigate the damage received) and the extra damage dealt to enemies.

Elements of Growth

Each attempt is divided up into stages, which yields a reward at the end based upon the score for the stage. These include gold, essence, or even unlocking cores aka special abilities/perks, such as the aforementioned life leech, for the remainder of the attempt. While these cores can be equipped to help the heroes proceed further in the game, they can also be transformed into additional essences to help characters progress in future attempts. Essences are earned individually for the heroes playing and can be redeemed to unlock new combo attacks, special attacks, or to improve the potency or quantity of potions. Unfortunately, it can be a bit of a grind to get enough essences to unlock a combo attack or special attack, which ranges in cost from 9-60 essences. Each attempt yields roughly 7-20 essences, depending on whether cores were transformed and on the combo score for the stage. Since there are five heroes, each with their own essence supply, it can be grueling to unlock moves for each one.

Gold can be redeemed to upgrade the cores. For example, the slow core, which offers a chance to slow enemies down for a few seconds with each attack, can be increased from 15% up to 25% with the fourth upgrade. Some of the cores are more helpful than others, such as life leech versus slow core, but they are not game-breaking in any fashion. Each little advantage helps to progress further in the game to earn more rewards with each attempt.

Dense Jungles

The game features various jungle-inspired monsters such as a masked monkey throwing an amorphous, yellowish-brown object to round frogs that perform a close-range attack with their tongue. The monsters come in 2-3 waves per stage, and these fights are generally straightforward. However, the game requires a great deal of button mashing, which makes it easy for local friends to jump in and play, but it can also become a bit tiresome after the tenth-plus attempt to get through a world. Each of the four worlds contains unique monsters, colors and designs unique to that region, and a boss battle between worlds.

Bosses are quite tough early on, such as Mapinguari, the boss for the first world along the Amazon Trail. This badger-like creature has quite a bit of HP and can only be damaged once the shield is broken, which leaves the boss temporarily vulnerable while it recharges. Its attacks combine various cadences of short-range swipes, green blob projectiles, and an AOE attack raining from the sky. Without a doubt, these encounters provide extensive, sweaty, challenging gameplay, balancing dodge maneuvers and attacks.

As with many rogue-like games, Tunche will take patience and an extensive grind to get to a better place to progress further through the game’s four worlds. The journey to get through the dense jungles tends to be repetitive in nature. That said, challenge stages are a unique aspect that breaks up the monotony some. For example, challenges may require you to reach a certain number of combo attacks before the timer is up or to defeat a unique monster before the timer ends. These optional stages require 25 gold to try, but they reward ten essences upon completion. Given that essences are a less common resource than gold, these challenges are certainly worth your while if you can complete them.

Drawn for Success

The 2D, hand-drawn graphics look amazing throughout the game, from the character design, to the levels themselves, and even the chibi-like character storybook cutscenes. The Amazonian jungle is wonderfully stylized, with luscious greenery, mountains and rivers in the distance, befitting a Peruvian-inspired game. The characters are also well drawn, and each one has a backstory shown in a colorful, hand-drawn comic strip that appears after a certain number of attempts. While the artwork is quite impressive, the text font is rather small and hard to read in both handheld and dock modes. Unfortunately, there’s no option to increase it, which hopefully gets added later via patch. The game’s music and sounds fit the jungle theme with lively rhythmic drumming, flutes, and creature sounds like birds and bugs.

A Bunche Fun

Overall, Tunche is a nice, well-blended mixture of beat’em up and rogue-like gameplay that’s easy to play alone or with friends. Though it feels like a bit of a slow grind to progress, it will provide an ample challenge, even for veteran gamers. Plus, the Amazonia jungle themed, hand-drawn artwork is absolutely impressive and stylish. And who doesn’t love Hat Kid? Punch your way through the heart of the jungle to find Tunche!

A Nintendo Switch code was provided for this review and gameplay footage.