We all know them: the bullies. The people who pick on others for whatever reason they can think of. Well, it turns out that squares also have bullies, and Squareboy has been picked on for the last time!
Squareboy vs Bullies: Arena Edition follows our little Squareboy as he goes from getting knocked out at the bus stop to training at the dojo to the final step of taking down the Big Bully! In order to reach the Big Bully, Squareboy will need to take down hordes of other bullies who will want to punch, kick, shoot, and chop him. Oh, and throw baseballs and hammers at him.
Squareboy vs Bullies is a beat-’em-up game in which you’ll go through waves upon waves of foes before you finally reach the end. At times it feels a bit like too many foes. The game is spread across a multitude of levels that go across the city in a side-scrolling fashion. Each level you can expect to face at least 10 groups of enemies, each separated by only a few feet.
Your controls will primarily consist of hitting the Square button. This is your primary attack button. Combine this with directions on the D-Pad or Analog Stick and you’ll do moves such as uppercuts or lowkicks. Your main danger comes from enemies surrounding you, and you’ll quickly learn that countering saves lives (literally).
Even after thinking it over for a while, I’m still not sure what I think about how the combat feels in this game. It’s pretty easy to miss, and enemies will sometimes make it their mission to backstep constantly if you try and get too close to them. Ranged attacks are limited, since you can only do them if you’ve picked up an item that has limited hits to it before it vanishes. There is a dash attack you can use, but I found it clunky more-so than actually useful. Countering becomes your lifeline to have any hope of staying alive, and even then you can find yourself getting hit while you’re there countering.
The music didn’t really stick out to me, and after some time I sort of just tuned it out when I became so focused on trying to keep up with countering. The text is fairly well done, though every bully talkin lyk dis got a bit old after a while.
I can’t really give a recommend or a not recommend to this game. It all really depends on if you think you’d enjoy mindless wave after wave of enemies. The game could have really used with about 75% less waves compared to what they had. Oh, and you can mess with the triggers on the final boss and make it so his two henchmen don’t spawn until you want them to. That was fun to do… I guess. I guess it was something. I have heard of some crashing issues for some folks with the game, though I never encountered any in my few hours of playtime it took to beat it.
You’ll have to simply judge for yourself if you have what it takes to bully the bullies.
I was provided with a free Vita key for coverage purposes by the publisher, Ratalaika Games.
