There was some charm that existed within 16-bit side scrollers. These types of games were very identifiable to the 90s gaming era and usually drove both the Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo systems. Both systems were built on a high-quality 2D experience that drove gamers and profits, and which caused the great video game war of the ’90s to reach its zenith.
Having been a huge gamer from the 90s, it was pleasant to see developer WayForward’s new Halloween-themed (literally and figuratively) game, RetroRealms – Halloween and Ash vs. Evil Dead. They are two separate games built on a 2D side-scrolling backbone with all the simplicity of an early 16-bit gaming experience. What does that mean to you? Well, it means lots of repetition with enemies, each level ending in a huge and creative boss fight, and not a lot of rhyme to their narrative reason, but just enough to get you to buy into the experience. Not a lot of complicated design either, but each features entertaining and honest intentions of what they are, which are two cute experiences crisscrossing together in story and execution.
So, get that chainsaw hand attached, sharpen that kitchen knife, and let’s slice up this game review.
Story is simple, yet familiar
Like any good action/horror film, the story of RetroRealms – Halloween and Ash vs. Evil Dead is quick and purposeful to get the player going on a 16-bit journey. For a lack of a better term, this game is a double-feature that plays off of Ash vs. Evil Dead and Halloween’s main characters, though the stories are crisscrossed in a similar fashion. In one game, you play Ash who is tasked with taking down Deadites, beginning in a trailer park (just like in the show), and to ensure that the Necronomicon doesn’t poison humanity. Very worthy reason to go between Earth and the dark realm using an eyeball as your guide.
On the opposite end, Michael Myers is acquired from his mental hospital to come out and slice and dice baddies. His silent demeanor is as present as his deadly need to take down everything in his path. Somehow, Myers crosses the same path as Ash, is fighting against the Necronomicon, and can swing back and forth between dark realms the same way as Ash can in the other game.
It’s as if WayForward bought two licenses and just needs a good reason to use them. Well, they found them. Honestly, if you’re not looking for a deep and enriching experience to fall into for hours upon hours, then this is your set of games. None of the story feels urgent, nor does it feel involved. Rather, it just is. That’s the 16-bit era in a nutshell. Swift simplicity and reasoning, and enough to experience and buy into the gameplay. You have to respect that a little bit.
Gameplay that doesn’t ask too much
The gameplay for both games focuses on playing off each movie character’s attributes while keeping it light with a restrictive old-school gameplay structure. For Ash, you wield a chainsaw hand and a shotgun. You can use both to get through gobs and gobs of Deadites across an action 2D side-scrolling landscape. You will mainly cut down Deadites repeatedly on your way to an end-of-level boss fight. Again, this is what a 16-bit era side-scroller always promised and delivered, and this game delivers that promise as well. It’s just pure action-driven fun.
Michael Myers is essentially the same, though not featuring a whack-a-doodle way of taking down enemies, just basic hack-and-slash. He was the first immortal slasher villain, so doing more than that just means you’re pulling away from his character. John Carpenter would not like that, and I wouldn’t blame him. What Myers is hacking is about every living and non-living thing in sight. Sure, it’s a bit more complicated because it’s CQC, but that small shift separates both characters enough to make both games feel less like they’re the same.
Now, if you’re not used to this era of gaming, and you should always experience different game generations and what drove them, then you might be caught off guard a bit by the pair of games’ repetition dependency. In both games, you will have droves of the same enemy type from level to level constantly running at you in waves. Those waves don’t subside until you reach the end boss.
In true 90s gaming fashion, there will also be unfair moments, where you may jump across platforms only to be knocked down by repetitive enemies. You’ll find that a bit more in the Myers game than you will with Ash. It might drive you nuts but that is how gaming worked back in the day. If you need an example, you can look at TMNT for the NES. That is the worst example of level and enemy design that actively worked as hard as it could to frustrate gamers. Beautiful but terrible, but in a good way.
Beyond just the action, the game does feature a clever back-and-forth between earth and the dark realm technique. This is driven in both games by an eyeball that each main character has acquired and can hold up and activate the switch. The goal of jumping between realms is to unveil certain level aspects that the player can’t see and how those aspects relate to certain revealed or hidden items that a level could contain. In addition, realm jumping also provides solutions to problems that the player might encounter as they traverse a level. For example, if the player reaches a part of a level that they can’t continue to progress forward within, then more than likely the solution is in the other realm. While that might be an overly easy way to circumvent a level obstacle, and it’s predictable, it’s still neat to find the extreme change in graphical environments and the brutally opposite look of each realm. In other words, it’s a creepy shift that brings a tinge more horror to the experience, while emulating clever level design.
Most modern gamers certainly have more refined tastes when it comes to variety and certain expectations with how gameplay should be executed. Typically, it would not be this simplistic. It’s the nature of the gaming beast, where consumers and modern gamers expect more bang for their buck and more effort and complication from developers. Having lived through Atari’s days and seen the 90s grow into what we know as gaming today, I can understand and give some sympathy towards that sentiment. The gaming industry sets new standards and sometimes it’s a hard sell to go backwards, even if it’s to openly present a retro experience.
God. Retro? I’m old.
Now, that said, if you know what you’re getting, then it’s far more entertaining to accept the goods. Both games’ entire gameplay structure reminded me of some great SNES games, specifically the Star Wars trilogy, which were as much a hit as they were difficult to play. Much like what you would find with the Star Wars trilogy on the SNES, both Ash vs. Evil Dead and Halloween were used properly to form a fun retro-style game that had remnants of both worlds but didn’t try to do too much other than to remind us they existed and could be fun to experience.
The pair of games in RetroRealms are more about quick bits of fun than some modern, deep, and rich experience. It’s just the way they are built, and it’s the way the Star Wars trilogy was built on the SNES. Again, it was just enough to get us into the worlds of the characters we can recognize and are familiar with but don’t go beyond simple gameplay style and execution.
Anyway, that’s the long and short of the gameplay structure for RetroRealms – Halloween and Ash vs. Evil Dead. It represents both series beautifully, while at the same time not delving too deeply into their myth and madness. It just wants you to hack-n-slash your way through countless enemies with simple mechanics, while offering up a side dish of horror and clever realm-jumping. You don’t need it to offer up more than those gameplay aspects.
Graphically fun
One of the bigger treats of the experience is how the games are presented. You will have a high frame rate of pixel-driven characters on active parallax backgrounds. The latter of which contains some grotesque moments, like Deadites pulling apart humans, or people running in terror that Michael Myers is loose.
Everything presented in both games screams the 16-bit era and it’s quite delightful to see in a modern gaming setting. There is a charm about games like these that bring back some warm memories of a Shinobi-filled world with a side dish of ActRaiser. This era of gaming that didn’t have complicated development budgets and that relied solely on visually representing the worlds built for it in a restrictive 2D gaming landscape typically produced some clever graphical solutions that always hit the mark.
Okay, almost always.
Anyway, WayForward captured this era and represented both licenses graphically and they brought some musical scores that only a MIDI-driven musician could respect. It’s a damn fine way to bring a true 16-bit experience to the world.
On that good note, let’s wrap this review up.
Conclusion
RetroRealms – Halloween and Ash vs. Evil Dead from developer WayForward does enough to create a proper 16-bit era, 2D side-scrolling driven by popular licensed horror characters Michael Myers and Ash. Will it set new standards and win awards for innovation? Nah, but it will bring a rich and repetitive 16-bit era experience that is a come-and-go-as-you-please gaming environment.
