It feels like a lifetime ago when Wario Land used to be this underrepresented hidden gem of a series. In reality, it has been around two years since Pizza Tower launched, absolutely dominating the internet for months to come and with it a newfound appreciation for its inspiration. In the meantime, however, another developer was cooking up something devilish. Something unexpected. Something like ANTONBLAST!
From a horizontal Breakout/classic Mario Bros. (before the “Super”) platformer adventure Antonball to this new mixture of Wario Land, Crash Bandicoot and Cartoon Network’s Cow and Chicken, the developer Summitsphere seems to excel at twisting the formula of gaming’s greatest, rarely followed hits. They create interactive reminders of why you used to love something just as it begins to fade away from your memory, all without sacrificing innovation.
I think we modern platformer enthusiasts often talk about the genre through the lens of an unyielding infatuation with speed and momentum. I love going fast, do not get me wrong, but there was once a time when going fast felt worse than going slow, at least on a casual playthrough. Nintendo developers were and still are masters of pacing platformers, and though Mario had options like the Tanooki suit or the cape, you never wanted to fly through a level. You wanted to find items, see the new enemies, and find secret paths.
ANTONBLAST taps into that immaculate pacing out of nowhere, after what I found to be pretty underwhelming first two levels on my first few runs through. This is not to say I did not enjoy them. Despite its recent resurgence, I still did not get my fill of the Wario Land formula, with all the bells and whistles of its escape sequences, so the moment that HAPPY HOUR hits, beginning the mad dash back to the start of the level, I was all in.
Part of my initial disappointed should be chalked up to me immediately trying to complete the two challenge modes for said levels. ANTONBLAST throws a lot at you right from the start when it comes to the skill ceiling, be that pathing out the best route, executing perfectly timed jumps off crates à la Crash Bandicoot without a retry opportunity, or understanding how to quickly gain and kill off momentum. It was the kind of slap in the face that made sure I knew that if I did not put in the work, I would not get anywhere near victory.
I still barely scratched the surface of that challenge having finished the game. Eight hours is what that took, and despite getting better I only barely gathered the confidence to tackle them. The time trial and combo chain modes are whole new games as far as I am concerned, the former requiring you to rethink your path and perform perfectly as to hit all time-saving crates while making up time you gain from them, while the latter is this ever-ticking timer as you find your way from one enemy to the next with next to no mistakes allowed.
Tackling them requires an understanding of ANTONBLAST’s mechanics that I could only get through experimenting, so in retrospect trying them out so early was a mistake on my part. It is not the kind of game you can master in a playthrough, making its 12-level (plus bosses) length understandable. There is much more content here than meets the eye, and the sky is the limit if you are willing to engage with it on a deeper level.
The moveset is full of this wonderful friction, making the entire experience feel pleasantly uncomfortable. It feels like we are still barely scratching the surface in terms of how a game like this can be controlled, but each new variation or idea feels like it has its place here. The floaty bounce off the ground which can be cut off by holding the down button, the speed-increasing attack that can be prolonged with the right timing—ANTONBLAST chooses to prioritize constant interaction and lets the player get more familiar with its quirks through that process.
Yet, on the casual side, it is still an absolute blast. It is easy to get lost in the flair of its levels, the visual splendor of its cartoon-inspired aesthetic, or the mixture of grooves and craziness in its soundtrack. It switches up the gameplay at a rapid pace, daftly moving between horizontal and vertical platforming, quick gimmicks, and game-changing transformations. It gets pleasantly overwhelming at times, with the intense screen-shake (which thankfully can be modified in the settings) adding to the chaos.
After the first hour of playtime, I left each level completely baffled. I mean, thinking about whether the thing you just played was one of the best 2D platformer levels of all time is a bit much, right? Yet, I felt like each subsequent stage still managed to one-up the last. There is no one thing to point to as the reason for their excellency, it is all that aforementioned immaculate pace that grabs you and never lets go, slowing down and speeding up when it needs to, using secrets, enemies, challenges, timers, and new mechanics. The flow that so few games manage to reach.
On top of that, ANTONBLAST features an all-time great collection of 2D platformer bosses. Aside from testing your core mechanics in unexpected ways, they rarely force you to wait. You can be proactive on several attacks, risking health for extra damage, rather than just waiting for the one opportunity to strike. Rarely do platformers use their movement options for combat, let alone do so with such flair and level of spectacle.
The comedy drives the point of a good Wario-inspired game. It is crude, complementing Anton and his co-worker Annie (the two playable characters which control identically) seen in the intro swearing and drinking themselves to unconsciousness, a dedicated scream button and the main antagonist flaunting his round behind at every opportunity. Plus, there are plenty of modern spins on the humor without any of the typically associated embarrassment, opting for a bit of random abstractions without feeling too alien. It is a fantastic combination, one which got a hearty laugh out of me on many occasions.
All of ANTONBLAST’s greatness is created through such ingenious mixtures, and as you play it feels like you are watching someone pluck and place it all in real-time. A bit of cartoonish villainy here, some Crash Bandicoot craziness there, and what you get is one perfectly crafted corridor of challenges after another. It can lose itself in its insanity at times, say launching you into the background and having you perform tight platforming as you squint your eyes, but what is a masterpiece of a game without at least a little bit of eye damage?
Perhaps it is presumptuous of me to say without fully mastering it, but ANTONBLAST does not only rival its classic inspirations, it stands tall as one of the most exciting 2D platformers ever. Past the starting hurdles hides one of the greatest collections of levels and bosses the genre has ever seen. I do not know what the limit is for this Wario Land-inspired style of game, you can always go bigger and crazier, but, in this small renaissance, ANTONBLAST rises as its new benchmark title.
Mateusz played ANTONBLAST on PC with a review code.
