Explodemon! Review

In the gaming industry, software sometimes ends up in an unpleasant spot, a sort of digital limbo known as "Development Hell." Curve Studios' Explodemon is a title that has long suffered from such an unfortunate experience. It was endlessly bumped around from platform to platform, and an unrelated, yet entirely similar game ('Splosion Man) came out in the interim. Yet, the small team at Curve Studios persevered, and its game is finally finding its way into players' hands via the PlayStation Network. In most respects, it was worth the wait. Explodemon is a great old-school-inspired game.

The premise of Explodemon is simple. An unstable, seemingly-useless robot (coincidentally named Explodemon) is unleashed to stop his devious and persistent foe (Absorbemon) and to halt the utter destruction wreaked by an alien species known as the Vortex. This adventure will require Explodemon to traverse three worlds in pursuit of his enemies as he finds support from various characters and NPCs. Explodemon has a tongue-in-cheek feel that harkens to the era that inspired the game. Explodemon himself even speaks in "Engrish," an ode to the poorly-translated games of yore. This loose, humorous feel goes a long way towards making the experience of playing Explodemon a pleasant one.

The good news is that apart from peripheral influences, Explodemon reeks of the old school. It's a slick-looking 2D platformer with 12 stages (four per each world). Explodemon might remind gamers of a Mega Man X-style game, but the gameplay is really an amalgam of old experiences, not just one. Explodemon's ability to wall-kick, for instance, invokes Ninja Gaiden and Mega Man X, while fast-moving aspects of the title may remind gamers of Sonic the Hedgehog. Nonetheless, Explodemon is a love letter to old-school gamers, and it shows from beginning to end.

Part of what makes Explodemon such an enjoyable experience is the unique nature of the gameplay. Explodemon is a defective robot that detonates randomly, making it unsafe to leave him around anyone. Yet, these explosions give him the ability to damage enemies, launch himself into sky-high jumps, and accomplish many other feats that will allow you to get closer and closer to the game's goal of halting the evil Absorbemon. Mastering this unique gameplay style is integral to Explodemon, and almost everything you do in the game will, in one way or the other, revolve around that core mechanic.

While Explodemon stresses combat with explosions, there are other important elements worth noting. You won't be running through stages at breakneck speeds (at least initially), so you'll need to learn how to best use Explodemon's skills to destroy enemies, solve puzzles, complete feats of platforming, and find a route through to the next part of any given stage. The game's levels are generally linear, though most of them have plenty of secret areas to access and some alternate routes to take. You should expect the game's difficulty to spike drastically in the latter stages, however, so it's important that you get things down early on while the going is still relatively easy.

While the gameplay is fluid, my favorite part about Explodemon is how much content is in the overall package. The game itself could certainly be longer in terms of stages, but Curve Studios has still done a great deal to fill Explodemon's 12 stages with a slew of content. There are collectibles to find, hidden NPCs with which to speak, and speed runs to complete. You'll get a ranking at the end of each stage based on how quickly you completed it and how many collectibles you found, among other criteria. There are online leaderboards to track your progress, allowing you to compete with other players around the world. And there's even in-game currency to find, which can be spent on upgrades that make Explodemon quicker and stronger. When you combine that with a pretty tough roster of Trophies to earn, you'll find that Explodemon is a pretty complete package. And at $10, it's priced well, too.

Graphically, the game looks nice (though it won't blow your mind), and the game's audio is top-notch. The music fits the stages and menus perfectly, and again is a nice little ode to the games of the past. Some of the stages and environments get a little drab and repetitive, and enemy designs run the gamut from awesome to typical to uninspired, but these are fairly minor gripes. A game like Explodemon is all about the gameplay experience and the content within the game, and when looking solely at those elements, Explodemon does things right.

I do have some gripes with Explodemon. Chief among them is the inability to map your character's movement to the D-pad. Instead, you're forced to use the analog stick, which is functional but makes careful navigation harder than it has to be. This is a 2D platformer, and the directional pad should be an option for gamers. Additionally, the game can introduce too many new features for gamers to explore, and some of them simply clutter up what is otherwise a seamless experience. You're taught a dashing move late into the game that you'll barely use. What was the point of introducing it in the first place? I wish that the core mechanics were introduced earlier and that you got to explore those finite features in greater ways.

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