🦆🦢 Mighty Goose | Review | Nintendo Switch | 7/10 | "Side-scrolling shooters, man. I have a complicated relationship with the genre" 🦆🦢 @rilemtwit @BlastmodeGames #IndieGames #GameDev

Side-scrolling shooters, man. I have a complicated relationship with the genre ever since I first played Green Beret on my mate's Commodore 64 around 1988. I still have something approaching PTSD from Super Probotector on the SNES (incidentally, I have played it recently and I'm still awful at it 30 years later). I can still remember the cheat and the theme music from Midnight Resistance on the Amiga.

Mighty Goose was offered to me with a comparison to Metal Slug. Given that was mainly a Neo Geo franchise, I've got less experience with it outside of the arcades, meaning my memories are typically of big, bright sprites rather than the constant dying I probably did. And this game owes a debt to all of the games above (except maybe Probotector, as I actually completed this without crying).

This is a very simple game: left to right and kill everything in sight. You play as the eponymous goose, a bounty hunter with a big gun. You can pick up a number of new weapons to replace the ineffective blaster you start with: a machine gun with a decent rate of fire, the riotous Tesla cannon, and one of the most satisfying shotguns I've used in recent times. On top of this, you can build up a rage meter, filling which lets you activate Mighty Goose mode, rendering you virtually invincible and supercharging your current weapon. The shotgun, by the way, is frankly ludicrous when powered up.

You can also unlock companions who will tag along on your journey, helping you out in various ways. Early on you meet Commander Vark, who throws you machine gun ammo regularly, while later on, you find a companion equipped with a powerful rocket launcher who softens up the bad guys nicely. You can also pick from a series of power-ups for your next mission, from speed boosts to double jumping.

The bright pixel graphics really add to the experience, and the soundtrack is excellent. A slight peeve is the amount going on on-screen occasionally. You'll be in the middle of a sea of enemies and take a hit from a projectile you might not have spotted through all the explosions, which can be irritating, especially as you only get four hits before your goose is cooked (sorry). Luckily, Goose has a roll manoeuvre that can get you out of trouble quickly, so it's worth mastering that.

The only issue with this game is the length - I got through the campaign in under 3 hours, and that's including a teeth-gritting boss I had real trouble with, as well as the final boss who was the recipient of the full middle-finger-at-the-screen treatment more than once. That said, once you finish the campaign you can enter the mirror universe (effectively New Game Plus), which lets you play through harder versions of the levels to unlock bigger rewards.

That's my only gripe with Mighty Goose, though.