Megabyte Punch Review

By – Steven Smith

Megabyte Punch from the two man development team at Reptile is a fast paced beat’em up platformer with a very familiar feel.  In the game you take the role of a newly built member in a race of robots known as Megacs.  The Megacs live in a digitally inspired world where every angle is either 45 or 90 degrees.  Even the trees have squared branches. You are different from the others because you were created for a specific purpose.  Your creator is an entity called the Heartcore, who lives in the village of Ventu.  The other Megacs in Ventu protect the Heartcore, but there are several outside forces wanting it for their own reasons.  Therefore, a special Megac was created that could fight to protect the village and the Heartcore from these threats.  That Megac is you.

After a brief introduction to the controls, you get to explore Ventu and meet the other Megacs.  You have been assigned a home in the village, which will become important very soon.  From here you can journey to other areas filled with hostile Megacs.  Each of these areas have three levels and a boss.  The controls are simple, mostly you use the four directions, jump and attack.  You also have a shield that can be activated for a limited amount of time and a pelvic thrust move which can quickly break through an enemy’s shield.  Then there is the Special Attack button, but I’ll come back to that later.  You fight your way through, at first, by punching and kicking your enemies.  While jumping you can perform strong aerial attacks. The combat, while simple, is very satisfying.  Especially when you deliver a powerful blow which sends a Megac flying across the screen and breaking through one of the many destructible walls found in the levels.

Once defeated other Megacs may drop a part.  These parts can be an arm, leg, head, shoulder, hip or torso.  Using these items is the main gameplay mechanic that defines Megabyte Punch.   At any time you can swap out current robotic parts with those dropped by your opponents. By picking and choosing which upgrades to use you very quickly start to customize the Megac to match your playstyle.  Unlike the traditional RPG style of advancement, Megabyte Punch let’s you revert and redefine your character as many times as you like.  This allows you to try out many different combinations of the 150 available parts.  Some provide passive bonuses, such as extra damage, defence or speed.  Others give you access to completely new fighting moves.  For example, I found a Megafist Arm that allowed me to perform an uppercut, an Armored Dyna-Hip that gives me a spin kick and the self explanatory Submachine Gun Arm.

These additional moves use the Special Attack button.  When an appropriate part is attached you are prompted to assign the special attack to a directional key.  You may then use the Special Attack key in conjunction with the directional keys to start performing special moves.   This gives you a total of four specials to choose from by using Up, Down, Left/Right (for purposes of using special attacks both directions are treated the same) or no direction at all.

At any time you can swap out your directional key binding, or even the abilities themselves should you have more than four installed on your character.  Be warned, however, that stopping to swap out parts and abilities does not pause the game.  Any hostile Megacs will continue to attack while you are in the character menu.  You can only carry a limited number of spare parts and they are removed from your immediate inventory and stored in your house when you complete a level.  Only the parts you have in your inventory upon exiting the level will be saved.  So if you find a new or rare part, be sure to hang on to it until you reach the end of the current stage. It would be wise to write down the names of all the parts you have saved.  The game does provide a full list of all parts you have, unfortunately this is only available in your house and does not help you while exploring a level.

In addition to collecting spare parts you can collect Bits.  When you get 64 Bits your character gains an extra life. You can break down spare Megac parts to get bits and some enemies drop them when defeated. You may also get Bits when destroying certain pieces of the level.  There are even treasure chests and boxes that can drop Bits when opened, or sometimes a rare Megac part.  Diligent level explorers may even find Color Capsules that will let you choose more color schemes for your Megac.  Any parts found during a level can be swapped out while playing. Colors can only be changed in your house.

In your Ventu house are three stations.  One stores all your saved parts and another has all of your available color schemes. This gives you a safe place to look at your full collection and build your perfect Megac. Once you have a good build the third station let’s you save it.  You can have up to 20 different builds saved which makes it easy to switch between a few that you like for different purposes.  For example, you can have one for exploring, one built for defense and another for maximum damage.

The level designs are fairly open, but there is a definite beginning and end to each area.  How you get to the end is entirely up to you as there is no specific path that must be followed.  I really like this as it encourages backtracking and exploration, but never forces the player to do so.  You cannot save during a level, but there are checkpoints that can be unlocked.  If you lose a life then your Megac respawns at either the beginning or the most recent checkpoint. When all lives are lost you start over back in front of your house. You may then go back to the level you were on, or any you have previously completed.

It pays to revisit levels after getting access to better parts. For example in the very first level there were areas that I could see, but not access.  I received a Drill Arm after defeating the first boss, which I could then use to drill through the walls and access these secret areas.  I had similar experiences after obtaining parts that allowed higher jumps and limited flight.  By contrast the Boss fights happen in a very small level with bottomless pits.  This makes the fights fairly tough and a bit claustrophobic.  The bosses are tough and can take a lot of damage, but if you can knock one off the edge and into the abyss it makes things much easier.  Just be careful that you don’t fall in yourself. If you are defeated by a boss and sent back to your home you don’t have to replay an entire area.  After facing a boss you are able to go directly to them from the village.

There are a couple of different modes of play.  The Adventure mode follows the story, which can be played solo or co-op with up to four local players via split screen.  All players will share the home in Ventu, which let’s each build their own Megac out of any parts found through either solo or co-op gameplay.  Or each player can pick from the list of any builds that you have saved.  You can also have up to four players in Versus mode, where you will battle each other on a small level similar to those where you fight bosses.

The splitscreen is no longer used in this mode, all fighters share the same screen.  Again, knocking your friends off the edge is a viable strategy.  Last is the Tournament mode where you must fight through a series of boss like fights.  The prize for winning is a special rare Megac part.  Tournament mode does not have a multiplayer option, so you will have to win on your own to get the prize.

The graphics in Megabyte Punch are simple, developer Reptile likes to describe them as “chunky. ”  To be honest, I don’t think the graphics could have worked any other way.  The models and animations have to account for several thousand combinations of robot parts and colors.  If you are used to smooth, high detail graphics in your games then this might take some getting used to. Although with the fast paced gameplay you may not even notice the chunkiness of the characters most of the time.  Similarly, the music is easily ignored given that you have so much happening on the screen.  It is an upbeat electronica score that quickly gets repetitive in classic video game fashion.  Each area has it’s own theme and it changes when you fight a boss or mini boss.

Conclusion: Is It Worth Your Money?

Megabyte Punch was in beta for about two years and the amount of polish is clear.  It is one of those indie games that you can point to as an example of what the Indie game scene is all about.  I had an absolute blast playing the game.  Unless you have an aversion to 2D fighting, shooting or platform games with lots of challenging action then you will likely enjoy Megabyte Punch.