Jitsu Squad Nintendo Switch Review 7/10 🔥 @Tanuki_Creative #IndieGame #GameDev

Jitsu Squad started out on Kickstarter a while back. After a successful campaign, it got a full Steam release, and now we welcome it to Switch. And welcome it we do, because this is one of those side-scrolling beat 'em ups that 

a) is the best genre ever 

and 

b) it could have come out in the 90s, with the (hand-drawn!) graphics, music and little touches we get.

You take control of the Jitsu Squad, a group of heroes out to stop an evil demon from getting a powerful artefact blah blah blah. It doesn't matter if the story is paper-thin because this is just a fun game to play. 

Each member of the squad has their own playstyle: Aros is the tank, slow but hard-hitting, Baby uses ranged attacks, Jazz is a  telekinetic frog (yes, really), and Hero, is more of a jack-of-all-trades.

Each character is easy to pick up and play with, so the inclusion of Tag Team mode, where you can swap between two, is a nice touch. You can pick up weapons for each character to change up their fighting style, and also trigger Fury Mode, where you turn into a human and smash the absolute hell out of everything.

I've already mentioned the graphics, and there are plenty of retro nods here and there, such as character portraits rushing onto the screen to herald a super move, huge combos and the super-deformed massive-headed sprites straight out of the Capcom Puzzle Fighter art book. You also get a few guest characters helping you out - Yooka-Laylee was the big one for me, but there's a Youtuber in there as well, I'm told.

The only criticism to level at it thus far is the length - only a few hours until you see the end. Of course, you can play through with other characters, and apparently, there'll be boss rush and survival modes added at some point. I've read stories about stability problems and crashes, but I've yet to encounter any, so maybe I'm just lucky.