With plenty of different challenges to face, enemies to destroy, and boss battles to unleash hell upon, no second of Steel Assault ever feels short of thrilling. You’re never doing the same thing for too long in the game, with the developer seemingly picking out some of the finest moments from across the best action titles of the 16-bit era and meshing them together into one insanely chaotic experience. It helps that the level design is so varied and manic, with players moving between individual areas that are full of non-stop chaos and destructive set pieces. Minor inconsistences aside, Steel Assault never stops being fun to play. Of course, that could be down to my own lacking skills, but there were a few instances where I felt that I wasn’t to blame… There was one occasion where the zip-line didn’t attach to an obstacle that it had previously attached to, whilst there were a couple of times where it felt especially difficult to nail the timing right. The only flaw with this was that there could be some minor inconsistencies when using it. Levels are designed to complement your zip-line too, whether that’s by encouraging vertical exploration or putting you in pulsating set pieces where you have to time the use of your zip-line perfectly if you want to survive. It’s easy to understand everything that Steel Assault expects of the player, whilst it’s always satisfying to experiment and see how to utilise your tools in more effective ways. “It’s just the like the action games you would have played on your Mega Drive or SNES, and it is glorious.”īoth Taro’s electric whip and zip-line grappling hook are simple ideas in design, but they really lend themselves well to the quick-paced nature of the gameplay. Be warned though: it can only be used if it can latch onto a solid surface on each end, meaning you’ve got to carefully plan out where and when you want to use it. Its use is vital to progressing through the game, especially in levels where the speedy approach is required because of some form of impending doom. Taro also has a zip-line grappling hook, which can be deployed to keep him safe from potential pitfalls or to blast him both vertically and horizontally across levels. This ensures the momentum of each level never comes to a halt, with players able to flow their running, jumping, and attacks into an impressive string of combos that never breaks the pace. Taro’s choice of weapon is an electric whip that can be lashed out across multiple directions, with enemies typically only taking one-hit to take down. It’s just the like the action games you would have played on your Mega Drive or SNES, and it is glorious. Players will traverse across linear levels, all whilst slicing down enemies and all-sorts of creative bosses, navigating through platforming challenges by running, jumping, and sliding, and using every trick up their sleeve to keep safe from the constant onslaught of attacks and hazards found in each level. Check out a gallery of screenshots down below:Īt its core, Steel Assault is very old-school in design. Of course, there’s a little more to it than that and the game does include scenes that flesh out the narrative a little, but there’s no doubting that the story plays second fiddle to the game’s manic action. In a nutshell, you play as the scarred badass Taro Takahashi as he ventures across a myriad of deadly locales, all whilst taking down countless enemies on his way to defeating the villainous General Magnus Pierce. I don’t think it’s too necessary to go into depth about the narrative of Steel Assault. It has epic 16-bit visuals, it’s packed to the brim with action, and it left me pulling my hair out at times thanks to its tough difficulty… basically, it’s everything I wanted from an old-school action title. I only had to take one look at the gameplay to be all-in and had a big smile wrapped across my face as I played through it. If you slam a retro-style run-and-gun title in my face, I’m GOING to play it – especially when it looks as awesome as Steel Assault.
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