Divine Dynamo Flamefrit Review (Switch eShop)

The toughest April Fools' jokes to swallow are the ones that genuinely get our hopes up, only for it all to come crashing down when reality sets in. April Fools’ Day 2024 saw plenty of enticing fake announcements, but there was one smaller prank nestled among the big hitters that stung just a little bit extra. Developer Inti Creates, known for games like Blaster Master Zero and Azure Striker Gunvolt, took to social media that fateful day to unveil Divine Dynamo Flamefrit: an all-new, top-down, action-adventure, dungeon-crawler game.

Suffice it to say, it left quite the strong impression with its stylish 16-bit graphics, its flashy combat, and, most importantly, its utter devotion to replicating the cheesy aesthetic of '80s and '90s-era shonen anime. While the trailer was clearly marked as an April Fools’ Day joke, that didn’t stop fans from letting Inti Creates know that this was a game they wanted to actually play. Fortunately, the developer made it happen. Once just an intricately crafted joke, Divine Dynamo Flamefrit is now out in a fully playable form — and it’s quite the enjoyable little romp.

In truth, Divine Dynamo Flamefrit is actually a spin-off of Inti Creates’ deckbuilding roguelite RPG Card-en-Ciel, which launched just weeks prior. In the universe of that title, Flamefrit is a successful entertainment franchise consisting of a popular anime and several tie-in games — the first of which is ostensibly the very game that we’re reviewing now. That meta element and background context isn’t necessary at all to enjoy what Divine Dynamo Flamefrit has to offer, but it’s a neat bit of fanservice that strengthens the game’s appeal toward anyone who has given Card-en-Ciel a go.

Divine Dynamo Flamefrit puts players in control of Yuto Hino, a heroic young boy who is magically transported to the fantasy world of Hologard and granted the title of Dynamo Knight. With his newfound power and the help of the mech companion Flamefrit, Yuto embarks on a quest to locate his party of allies and defeat the nefarious Archfiend.

If that set-up sounds insanely trope-y to you, it’s doing its job. All of the set dressing surrounding Divine Dynamo Flamefrit is a tongue-in-cheek love letter to retro battle and mecha anime (with a healthy dose of old-school RPG flavor), and it absolutely revels in emulating everything from the art style to the insert songs. You can expect to see all sorts of common tropes from the anime of yesteryear pop up, whether it’s bickering boy-and-girl companions or the power of friendship triumphing over evil.

It’s great, lighthearted stuff, with a decent supply of witty dialogue and visual gags that genuinely made us laugh on a couple of occasions. More than anything, Divine Dynamo Flamefrit feels like a nostalgic hug to anyone who grew up watching the likes of Pokémon, Sailor Moon, or other classic Saturday morning anime fare.

Beyond aesthetics, Divine Dynamo Flamefrit keeps things extremely simple in the gameplay department. The main mode primarily sees players as Yuto progressing through labyrinthine dungeons, where he must strike down enemies with his flame sword and reach the end of the level, where a boss battle awaits. It’s a very traditional and admittedly uninteresting dungeon-crawling experience, with little to find beyond health and magic refills and keys to open locked doors. Fortunately, combat itself is engaging enough to make up for any deficits on this front.

Yuto’s moveset consists of a sword attack, which can be pressed in rapid succession to perform a combo or held down to unleash a fiery slash, and a roll to dodge incoming attacks. That may sound rather basic, but Divine Dynamo Flamefrit does an admirable job of introducing just enough wrinkles to keep things interesting.

For one thing, learning enemy attack patterns and when exactly to roll and dodge them is crucial to avoiding hits, meaning that you can’t just blindly run forward and slash your way to victory. Indeed, there were several times over the course of our playthrough when we genuinely had a tough time holding onto enough health to reach the next checkpoint.

As a counterbalance to the challenge, each ally that Yuto recruits allows him to wield a powerful new attack at the cost of some of his magic supply. Mastering the roll also allows you to perform a perfect dodge, granting a brief window to hit the enemy’s weak point for an ultra-satisfying counterattack.

If we had one or two particular criticisms to level at Flamefrit’s combat system, the first would be that it feels just a touch stiffer than we’d prefer. That said, there’s a case to be made that even this element works in service of the gameplay, as it forces you to commit to whatever plan of attack you may have. We were also disappointed to find that Yuto’s ability to defeat chains of enemies by burning patches of grass with his sword, which was featured in the game’s trailers, is sorely underutilised. Unfortunately, it’s only a mechanic for the first level of the game and never returns afterwards.

Of course, Divine Dynamo Flamefrit’s exploration and top-down combat is just one-half of the experience. The real star of the show is the game’s set of boss battles, which take the form of first-person mech battles. For each boss, you assume control of Flamefrit, aiming and shooting with your laser cannon while simultaneously blocking and parrying incoming attacks.

These encounters are flashy, fast-paced, and a ton of fun to play. They’re also far and away the most difficult parts of the game — especially the final handful of fights, which offer a major spike in difficulty and require lightning-fast reflexes to dodge certain devastating attacks. To put things in perspective, our initial playthrough of Divine Dynamo Flamefrit took roughly two and a half hours. About one-third of that time was spent bashing our heads against the final boss. By the time we finally dealt the finishing blow, we were standing up in front of our couch with a sweaty forehead and fingers sore from button mashing.

And just like that, it was over. Divine Dynamo Flamefrit consists of just three main dungeons spread across a runtime of a few hours at most. It’s hard to get around the idea that, for all of the neat little things it does, Divine Dynamo Flamefrit is more akin to an appetizer than a full-on entree. We don’t particularly mind the game’s smaller scope in theory, seeing as it has an appropriately bite-sized price tag to match. In fact, it’s kind of refreshing to play a game that keeps things about as short, sweet, and simple as it possibly can.

However, we can’t quite drown out the voice in our head that wishes this little title was something more. It has a rock-solid foundation, with snappy and engaging gameplay, a great visual style, and a uniquely nostalgic flair, but none of these elements have the necessary room to develop beyond their most basic forms. The result is that Divine Dynamo Flamefrit feels like a novelty first and foremost, and a game that is far from essential — but, man, it sure goes down easy.