Since the success of Shovel Knight, indie game makers have continually been trying to cash in on that sweet side-scrolling 8-bit nostalgia craze, hoping that they too will be the next series to hit it big while seemingly forgetting that well crafted pixelated art and a decent-at-best soundtrack doesn’t simply equal sales. Unfortunately, Panzer Paladin‘s creators Tribute Games seems to have either missed the memo or opted to completely ignore it, because they’ve presented yet another side-scroller that checks all the right boxes for look and sound, but fails miserably in execution.
In Panzer Paladin, you play as the tag team of a blue-haired spitfire of an Android named Flame, and her Gundam-esque mech named Grit. There’s some sort of dual AI or something at work that gives both characters sentience, but the need to care about Flame is pretty much immediately thrown away once you realize she isn’t human. It’s clear the developers are outright ripping off paying homage to Jason and Sophia from Blaster Master, except for the little part where Sophia didn’t talk since it was a tank and it didn’t need AI because machines are tools of war and don’t need to have feelings. You also care a lot more about Jason, because he’s a human which gives the player an excuse for why he’s considerably more fragile when he isn’t inside the tank – which makes Flame even more pointless, since they could have just made her the same size as her battle armor since she isn’t a real person and therefore negating the fact that they didn’t have an original idea. It would have probably been smarter to just use Grit in the same way Mega Man X can steal body armor from defeated enemies and use them for sections where his weapons weren’t quite big enough.
The story is hilariously forgettable, as some demonic force is out to take over the world and 10 meteorites in the shape of weapons are impacted in various locations throughout the globe. These meteorites in turn start spawning enemies that terrorize the countries they landed in and it’s up to Flame and Grit to go and dispatch the robot masters leader enemies. Okay, let’s not pretend that side-scrollers need some incredible story to work, but could we at least write something that makes any semblance of sense? Don’t insult your players, especially if you’re going to outright steal ideas from games that were incredibly successful for both having a decent story and being fun to play. This game is a jumbled rehash of Mega Man X, Blaster Master, Shovel Knight, and Castlevania with a slight bit of rogue-like peppered in because that’s what’s currently popular.
Speaking of being fun to play, this is where Panzer Paladin fails miserably. The gameplay is generic at best, and while I can appreciate that it does a little bit more than a simple jump and attack, none of the attack mechanics work particularly well. Grit has a shield that only blocks attacks that come directly at you, which means you’ll need to have the shield centered directly in front of the projectile or you’ll take damage. Why even bother drawing the shield larger than its hitbox if it won’t deflect in a cone-shaped arc? Grit itself controls like a big clunky mess, feeling considerably heavier to move and platform with than Flame does, and Grit’s attacks are considerably unreliable. The upward thrust attack is mostly useful for jumping up to platforms above you or clearing a pitfall that Grit’s fat ass is just a little too heavy to make without an assist. The downward thrust attack is decent, but isn’t nearly as reliable as it is in Ducktales or Shovel Knight, and throwing your weapon works about as well as you’d expect throwing your weapon in a straight line to work – so I hope you mastered the Knife in Castlevania.
Grit comes armed with only its fists, which are passable but offer no range. As you progress through the levels, enemies drop other weapons such as knives, swords, staffs, spears, clubs, maces, and because Canada, Hockey sticks. Each of these weapons has a different spell attached to them, and you can break the weapon to unleash it’s contained spell. Some of these spells are good, such as increased durability (which gives your weapons more durability before they break) or increased damage. The buff spells seemed to last until I died, which was nice, but since this game is full of cheap ways to die, it’s only a matter of a few seconds until you’ve died, slowly learning each level’s layout (more about this in a minute.) Grit can only hold four weapons at a time, but does have a manageable inventory so you can swap weapons on the fly depending on what type of enemies you’re dealing with and how much range you’d like. This is probably the only part of the gameplay that I enjoyed, because strategy is always a welcome addition. About to enter a boss fight? Swap to three weapons with healing and a longer-ranged weapon until you learn the boss pattern. Not worried about taking damage and just want to zerg? Break an attack up and a defense up weapon before you head in. Beam is also a nice touch, but I’m still not even sure what blessing does – which I assume allows you to take fatal damage once without dying, but I almost always fell into a pitfall that I should have easily been able to clear while I had that buff active.
When Panzer Paladin works at its best is after you learn the layout of each level and know what to expect in order to deal with it, but until that point, it’s a painful slog through cheap deaths and seemingly endless sections to get to a checkpoint. Speaking of checkpoints, here’s that rogue-like element I mentioned earlier: When you reach a checkpoint, you have to decide whether or not you want to sacrifice the weapon you’re currently holding to activate it or not. If you do, you lose the weapon but don’t have to replay the entire previous sections if you die. If you don’t, you get to slog back and hopefully realize that no weapon is worth holding onto and not activating the checkpoint for. The other rogue-like element is that when you die, you drop your currently equipped weapon and lose all of the weapons you have equipped. This means I, of course, had one decent weapon on me, and the other three were just whatever common trash was dropped as I progressed. The checkpoints are too far apart considering how easily you can die by pitfall/spike traps, and this makes progression ultimately feel more like a chore than a fun exploration. Unfortunately, you have to actually fully complete a level before you can run it a second time to where it actually feels somewhat satisfying now that you’ve died numerous times and know what to watch out for. Not having fun until you actively know what’s coming is bad game design, and it’s a shame because exploration should always be the most fun in this type of game aside from figuring out the boss battles.
Speaking of which, the boss fights in this game are adequate, but the rewards are painfully mediocre. When you beat a boss, they drop their weapon, and this makes that weapon become part of the loot table which means it can now show up off any enemy in any level. Neat, but ultimately a slap in the face for taking the time to learn the game. Why don’t the bosses drop their weapons, and instead of making them random items, why not grant them as permanent weapons that have no durability but can be lost if you die? How about adding an exceptionally powerful spell to it so there’s a greater sense of loss/reward? Say for example, if you break the boss weapon, you gain invincibility for the level but you can obviously still die to a pitfall. This would give a much larger sense of accomplishment for boss completion and add a lot more strategy for more punishing stages.
At $20, Panzer Paladin is a pretty complete package even if it is repetitive. Aside from clearing the game on easy/normal/hard, there’s also a speed run mode, a tournament mode, and a blacksmith mode which allows you to develop your own weapons which automatically upload to the Steam community for ease of sharing. Of course, be ready for your dick sword to be removed by a moderator, but yay for drawing a dick sword, I guess. If the gameplay was tightened up a bit, I think Panzer Paladin would be a lot more fun to play instead of feeling like a game trapped in the late 80s just for the sake of nostalgia. It’s 2020 guys, there’s no excuse for basic at best design elements. Even in 1987, Contra gave us 8-way shooting so weapons that simply poke straight out and stab is way too archaic to feel relevant. In it’s current state, Panzer Paladin is more of a chore to play than it is a joy, and as someone who enjoys challenging games, that’s really a shame.
Panzer Paladin was played on Steam, and was provided for review by Tribute Games.
