The gameplay and progression in SuperEpic might feel familiar to begin with, but what starts out as a simple Metroidvania quickly becomes much more. Themes from throughout the history of games are used to tell a story with very real and extremely worrying implications; that big-name developers are just out for our money, and don’t care about the quality of the games they put out.
This sobering thought is caveated by the huge number of hilarious Easter eggs players can find in the nooks and crannies of the game, from small obscure references to ancient games most people today might not have heard of, to characters almost entirely stolen from well-known TV shows, like Scruffy The Janitor of Futurama.
SuperEpic revolves around the use of three key attacks – a quick attack, guard break, and uppercut – and the in-depth exploration of each level. The game’s controls are responsive, making combat and platforming encounters feel challenging yet fair. There are very few platforming puzzles or secret areas to navigate, and only the occasional moment where exact buttons presses are needed for the hardest fights, but overall SuperEpic feels goods to play. On the Switch Lite, in particular – which feels like a far more robust console in itself – the game plays like the console was made for it.
The story of SuperEpic stars a racoon and a llama storming the office of the world’s one and only remaining game developer, Regnantcorp. The company controls consumer spending by releasing awful free-to-play games that require in-game purchases to win, and each one is designed to make users spend as much money as possible. A renegade group working from within helps the protagonists begin their journey, and assists them along the way with helpful upgrades and abilities.
The game’s story is enjoyable, adding context to the different floors of Rengnantcorp’s almost endless office, but the environment is the real star of the show. Each area players progress through is a different floor of the building, linked by both the clever secret back-tracking pathways which are common in Metroidvanias as well as a huge elevator that makes things a lot clearer.
Floors and bosses are themed around certain aspects of free-to-play games, whether that’s the Slave Team Builder, whose design is based on every middle-manager that works their underlings to the bone on a daily basis, or the Senior Monetization Vampire, an actual vampire that drains money from consumers until they become ghosts. The Vampire’s domain is an ancient castle filled with the spirits of consumers, and the Spying Network Architect’s lair is a huge collection of long corridors filled with servers.
SuperEpic’s soundtrack only adds to the world inside Regnantcorp’s office. One floor’s music sounds as if it was pulled directly from a classic Sonic game, and another feels almost akin to the creepy music of Castlevania and, weirdly enough, Lavender Town from Pokémon Red and Blue. As if the environments weren’t enough, the music really hammers home just how much SuperEpic is inspired by a love of classic games and the days when the only way to play them was to physically leave the house and head to the arcade.
Working through each new floor requires players to upgrade their weapons and stats, which is where the renegade group comes into play. By defeating enemies players earn coins, and these coins can be spent on stat upgrades or new weapons for each of the three available attacks. Weapons and defensive items can be upgraded, and trinkets found in the world to provide boosts for specific play styles. In this way SuperEpic breaks the Metroidvania mould to provide players with strategic advantages should they come up against an especially tough challenge.
Keeping in theme with free-to-play games, SuperEpic has two currencies. The more premium currency is used to buy new attacks and abilities, which aren’t essential, but definitely help as more enemies pile onto the screen in later floors. These upgrades feel meaningful almost immediately because each new floor comes with a difficulty spike that will kill players quickly if they’re not prepared. On the plus side, this makes back-tracking for secrets a lot easier with the advantage of more powerful gear.
Dying can be a crippling punishment in SuperEpic. Toilets (as in real life, ahem) mark save points, but they can be few and far between if players spend too long exploring. A helpful mechanic will revive players once between saves at the cost of half their cash, but dying again will reset them to the last save point. Careful players won’t find this a problem, but those who get too carried away with exploring will suffer from the harsh, yet fair, punishment.
Exploration is rewarded in SuperEpic in more ways than just items or premium currency. Littered throughout the Regnantcorp building are rewards hidden behind impenetrable laser doors. Nearby QR codes can be scanned with a smartphone to load one of Rengantcorp’s horrific minigames, which must be completed to a certain level if players want to unlock the reward in front of them. These minigames are a great way for collectors and completionists to get their fix, but are far from essential. However, the context they add to the game’s story, building on the tale of the world’s biggest rip-off merchant, is genius.
Minigames can also be played at certain junctions of the game to unlock more in-game currency, which gives players an easy way to upgrade their attack for the current area, but once again is far from needed for a playthrough. SuperEpic is at its best when being as satirical and on the nose as possible. One boss fight sees players working their way through what is almost an entirely copied Castlevania level, with their attacks and abilities stripped away, and another makes them fight against Metal Gear. Yes, that Metal Gear.
Conclusion
Going into it, players might find the humour in SuperEpic a tad too cutting for their taste, but once a few floors have gone by, the laughs start to seep through in almost every aspect, including the way that Regnantcorp employees seem to constantly sleep at their desks and do no work. The tone of the game breaks up how grueling some of the combat can be when faced with a long corridor full of enemies that are incredibly annoying to fight, making for a much more well-balanced experience that feels more than at home on the Nintendo Switch. While it makes a point of poking fun at the state of the games industry, SuperEpic is also a lot of fun to play.
Comments 31
Honestly, this looks right up my alley. Just got to find time to play it...
"A Metroidvania Built On Satirical Humor And Minigames"
Oh, boy. Built on satirical humor...
Inb4 all the people being offended by this game thrashing it on social media...
You can have a pretty good time with some F2P games and then with sales, games under $5.....
Not a fan of the humour, it's a bit trite, but I'm a sucker for a Metroidvania, might give it a look.
Confused. . . is this F2P or $17.99 like the margin summary says?
@bluedogrulez It's $18, the premise of the game is a satire of the F2P industry.
Well the trailer already looked good, so I'm glad to hear the game is good, too.
Hope this gets the physical release treatment, it looks worthy.
Very strange review... Seems to start halfway through something longer... The Switch Lite is a "far more robust console"? Toilets are save points "as in real life"?
Well I wish the author good luck with future reviews.
The way the game looks and theme of the game make me think if these are former employees who worked on the addictive as f*ck futurama free to play game that was definitely milling the player for money.
I'm probably going to make time to play this eventually, but the idea that they blatantly and shamelessly ripped off Scruffy and a Castlevania level without making it their own kind of pisses me off. They may have been doing it in the satirical spirit of the game, but to me, it seems incredibly lazy.
I'll wait for a half off sale.
@ThanosReXXX Satire doesn't inherently mean people are going to get offended.
It's usually when the satire is ignorant, lazy, or is used as a front just to punch down, when people get offended and/or trash the work. But when it's well executed, folks appreciate it.
@DTFaux I hope you DO know that I was only joking, right?
@ThanosReXXX I honestly didnt. Which may make my point about execution, but I'll concede that it might've just been me who missed the joke.
@DTFaux It's cool. I take no offense. For future reference: whenever I use smileys, you can always expect me to either be sarcastic, joking or only half serious at best.
Oh, and normally, I'd never use moronic abbreviations like "inb4" either...
Fitting on the Switch, which does seem like Nintendo cares more about money than quality. Smash Ultimate is nearly a year old and with the DLC is over twice the cost of Smash 3DS for half the content
@Whyita Sakurai nearly works himself to death. You: I want more!!!!
@ThanosReXXX Ah, fair enough.
"On the Switch Lite, in particular – which feels like a far more robust console in itself – the game plays like the console was made for it."
I really don't understand what the Reviewer meant by this. How is the Switch Lite a more robust console??
@Shinnos To me the original console feels like it's going to fall apart in your hands because the Joy Cons might detach. The Switch Lite doesn't have this issue, and in the case of SuperEpic, it adds to the experience.
@Trikeboy I want as much as we had last time at least. Isn't that how sequels are supposed to be?
@Whyita and you think that including every single fighter from all past games (which didn't happen with the Wii U entry), even including a lot of new ones and then adding 10 more via DLC, along with packing it with game modes to play isnt more than last time? Entitlement overload.
@Trikeboy Where's Event Mode? Where's an actual All-Star Mode? Why did we need to pay for Home-Run Contest and Stage Builder? Custom moves were fun. Trophies were fun. Trophy-gathering minigames were fun. Characters, stages, music, basic gameplay are great, but so was it in Smash 4, and yes, that had more right out of the box. So no, more characters does not mean more gameplay.
@Whyita Home Run Contest and Stage Builder came in a free update (and the Stage Builder sucked in the Wii U version, anyway), and you don't even need a Nintendo Online subscription to download it. While Event and All-Star Modes would be nice, they're more than made up for by "World of Light," the return of offline Tournament Mode, and a couple other new game modes. The Spirits and the ways to collect them replaced the Trophies and are just as fun. On top of that, having more characters and stages (even before DLC) still makes a difference as well (and part of the fun of Smash is unlocking them all). I'll give you that the lack of custom moves is disappointing, though.
@BulbasaurusRex Trophies were more fun, looking at them from different angles, the descriptions, seeing your huge collection when you look at it all at once. World of Light is fun to unlock everything. Then it's just boring. Same matches with same conditions over and over...and the modes should be there in the beginning. The characters are great, but like Ridley, Inklings, they're not as good as Link or Zero Suit Samus, my two mains. I guess that's more of a personal preference.
If people like this game, hey, more power to them. But for me, characters and stages don't replace things I always liked. And everything Nintendo has done, at least IMO, since the Switch came out, was a cashgrab. Guess I'm just a cynic
@Whyita Don't the spirits also have descriptions? I think you're in the low minority as to those who really enjoy rotating the trophies or viewing the entire collection.
Meanwhile, Event Matches and All-Star Mode are just as boring as an adventure mode like "World of Light" once you've beaten them all, the same matches with the same conditions over and over, you know. Any of them are worth revisiting once in a while but are best when doing everything for the first time. However, the return of offline tournament mode is a huge advantage over Smash4WiiU and never gets old, not to mention the new game modes like the one that has you keep switching to different unused characters. Also, all these modes are there from the beginning just as long as you've updated to the latest version.
@BulbasaurusRex Well World of Light is basically Event Mode I guess, meaning we don't really get an adventure mode. If the best thing about Smash Ultimate is the same mode from the first Smash, may as well just play that. And what descriptions? All we get is a picture of something for Spirits
@Whyita OK, that is disappointing about the Spirits, but otherwise they're just as good as trophies.
Most players would consider "World of Light" to be closer to a true adventure mode than an event mode, but whichever one to which you equate it, you're still ignoring that Smash Ultimate brought back offline tournaments and added two brand new game modes that more than make up for the modes that were dropped.
@BulbasaurusRex What two new modes?
@Whyita Smashdown and Squad Strike, of course. Along with the return of offline tournaments, these three modes more than make up for the absences of Event Matches and All-Star Mode.
@BulbasaurusRex I mean...again, just play the original. Or Melee. You can just modify some rules or make like a faux Squad Strike mode. And why replace modes instead of just add them?
It's on sale right now until tomorrow for €1.69.
I bought it as I was about to buy a physical copy in CEX for €15, checked the eshop, and put it back.
Can't go wrong at this price.
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