Grade: B-
Retro Side Scrolling Hack and Slash
Chipmonk is an old-school-looking game that caught my eye with the Redwall-style characters. I was immediately reminiscing about my youth and the adventures Brian Jacques took me on in his many battle-filled series.
When you are on the menu screen, you choose one of three chipmunk characters, and each character plays slightly differently in the combat ahead. Whoever you choose, the goal is to hack and slash your way through the levels, killing indiscriminately as you go. I genuinely can’t tell if the chipmonks are the good guys or the villains in this game.
Golden Axe Homage
As I tried out Chipmonk, I was reminded more of Golden Axe than Redwall. Chipmonk is, at its core, an homage to Golden Axe. The similarities are striking. You can choose one of three characters, have a magic power you can cast for an ultimate attack, and flow through a side-scrolling hack and slash.
Gameplay was repetitive
Similarly to my issues with the aged Golden Axe, I didn’t find the gameplay in Chipmonk particularly fun or exciting. The enemies were generally the same over and over, and there wasn’t a lot of flavoring to the game.
A few highlights:
- There was a mole that dropped mushrooms that reversed the controls if you accidentally ingested it. That was a fun twist.
- The magic ultimate attack animation was fun. When I had full magic, I dropped a whale on the enemies.
In comparison to the highlights, the sound design was the biggest low-light. The music and enemy sounds just were boring at best, and annoying at worst.
In case you want to catch the vibe of the game, here’s my playthrough below. I didn’t get to the end of the game, but close enough.
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