An a game with plenty of Metroid inspiration based on an Anime that inspired Metroid.
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/review/72200/space-adventure-cobra-the-awakening-switch-review
Space Adventure Cobra: The Awakening is a 2D action platformer based on the manga Cobra from the late 70’s. Specifically its television anime adaptation Space Cobra. Confusingly it does not directly pull from the 1982 anime film adaptation Space Adventure Cobra despite sharing its name. You play as the titular Cobra, a space pirate who erased his own memory and altered his appearance in order to escape the pursuit of the Space Pirate Guild several years ago. After awakening to his identity, Cobra is quickly pulled into his old life of planet hopping and treasure hunting. But it doesn’t take long for the Space Pirate Guild to pick up his trail and reignite their old feud.
Space Adventure Cobra: The Awakening pulls its cutscenes directly from the anime series. Likewise levels are built to blend as seamlessly as possible with bookends provided by the anime. It is overall highly successful, though there is a somewhat unavoidable shock moving between the modern, real-time 3D rendered environments and the 80’s anime. But the way the game and the anime are so lovingly intertwined speaks to a true adoration for the source material.
Gameplay would be easy to initially mistake for a metroid-like, despite the game being a level-based, linear action-platformer. A lot of that comes from what are very clearly some strong influences from Mercury Steam’s Metroid Dread. Cobra’s basic move set and much of his animation feels directly lifted from Metroid Dread. I don’t mean that in a bad way. Cobra feels great to control. You run and aim with the left stick. By holding down the L button you can lock in place and freely aim in any direction. Cobra grabs ledges and smoothly mantles over low obstacles. By pressing A he can slide through small gaps or even between the legs of enemies. Y offers a melee attack though the otherwise close similarity to Metroid caused me to wish for a proper melee counter. The fact that this game takes such strong influence from modern 2D Metroid carries with it plenty of irony as Metroid itself was heavily inspired by Space Cobra as has been documented by historian Kate Willært. But that doesn’t mean that everything is pulled from Metroid. Cobra’s iconic psycho-gun is perhaps the game's most interesting and original mechanic. When fired, time freezes as you guide its firing path freely through the environment. This can be used to take out multiple enemies in a chain of destruction, or curve around corners to hit otherwise unreachable targets.
Levels themselves are nicely varied both aesthetically and in terms of actual gameplay. As you progress you unlock new weapons and abilities which are accompanied by new enemy types and challenges. And despite not being a Metroid-like, you can revisit old levels with these abilities to find hidden collectibles that were not accessible on your initial visit. I did notice that even on the standard difficulty, enemies tend to be extremely spongy. Even if you’re watching for gun upgrades, you’ll be sinking quite a few shots into some enemies. This leads to a somewhat inflated sense of difficulty that usually stems from simply spawning a whole bunch of enemies that all take a few too many hits to kill. Luckily the game's checkpoint system is extremely generous and there is no arbitrary lives system so if you die, you simply try again usually from directly before that encounter.
Borrowing heavily from the source anime, Space Adventure Cobra: The Awakening also inherits its soundtrack. When mixed with remixed and original music the auditory vibes are outstanding. The anime sequences also feature a new dub in order to match their audio quality and voicework to that of the in game dialogue. It's overall very good. Though I spotted a few times where subtitles were mislabeled. It wasn’t a huge issue but there were some instances where I was playing handheld with the sound off and got briefly confused.
Switch and Switch 2 performance is good in terms of frame rate, though handheld mode leaves something to be desired in terms of image quality. Docked the games looks quite serviceable both on Switch and running in backwards compatibility on Switch 2. But in handheld mode the clean cell shade anime aesthetic is dulled somewhat by a very low resolution. It doesn’t affect actual playability but it certainly hurts the art design.
In a world where seemingly the vast majority of classic anime adaptations boil down to arena brawler after arena brawler, it has been wonderful to see Cobra get a more in-depth approach. What results is an enjoyable game that conveys the anime’s story not only in its cutscenes but throughout its level design as well. It is clearly a game made by a team with legitimate admiration for their source material. It has some small issues with enemy balance and a few minor presentational blunders, but it's hard to ignore the charm and passion that exudes from Space Adventure Cobra: The Awakening.
Topic: Space Adventure Cobra: The Awakening (Switch) Review (Read 88 times)
