Alloy Mushroom presents the demo of a very interesting title: Super Alloy Crush. With strong references to titles like Mega Man X, but also with Roguelite elements. Let’s see what it looks like.
Super Alloy Crush immediately caught our attention from the first images. Extremely colorful and with captivating pixel art, it takes a lot from the aesthetics of the Mega Man saga.
Investigating the developer history, we see a 2022 title: Super Alloy Ranger. Despite the aesthetic similarity and the sharing of the protagonists, Super Alloy Crush seems to be a spiritual sequel. A title that improves and elevates the previous in many respects.
Especially on the gameplay and combat system side there are some little gems. Nothing innovative but still well done. Having tested the title in depth and in preview, we were able to play part of the story and a Battle Frenzy mode.
Let’s go in order and start from the story.
The Super Alloy Universe
In the Super Alloy universe, the characters are on a mission to find the ultimate cosmic treasure planet AE-38. We can play the demo in the role of two characters: Muu and Kelli.
Muu is a robot fighter specializing in melee. She uses energy claws and thanks to her mobility she is also a skilled fighter in projections and aerial attacks.
Kelly is a cybernetically “enhanced” human, skilled with firearms and also masters martial arts.
These two characters, although they share the same mechanics, differ in a variety of effectiveness and aesthetics of the combos and special moves. Muu is a simpler character to master, despite this it is very satisfying to slice enemies, pad in hand. Kelly is the most technical, the moves and combos must be managed and used depending on the case and the enemies we will have in front of us.
Speaking of enemies: although the demo is short, there are a good number of opponents. They are well characterized and well cared for, both the humanoids and the mechanical ones. Everyone has their own moveset. In addition to the aesthetics with strong references to Mega Man and the really well done world design, a mention to the soundtrack.
Overwhelming, frenetic pieces of music that well characterize the arcade spirit of the mid-90s.
The Gameplay
The Super Alloy Crush demo offers two modes: Story and Battle Frenzy.
The first takes us inside a portion of the game’s story. We can choose between the two protagonists and face a fairly long stage with a boss fight at the end.
The level extends both horizontally and vertically, with the possibility of following different paths. Super Alloy Crush is not linear: secrets, secondary paths that lead to mid boss fights or hidden treasures. In fact, in the levels there is a large quantity of destructible objects that can give us money and materials. There are also vehicles that, once destroyed, can be used as improper weapons against enemies, being careful not to get hit. The stages are easily explored thanks to the great mobility of the characters.
We have a double jump, a dash and good speed. In addition to these we have a normal attack, a special that consumes a blue energy bar, and a super attack that uses yet another bar. Mobility integrates well with the moves, because in addition to doing combos, we can do both ascending and descending aerial moves, running attacks and special moves, each with its own animation. Change the animation of the combo depending on which direction we move the left analog. Even the special move has different animations and effects depending on how we move the analog stick.
The last gem is the presence of some containers to destroy. These will contain one of our allies who, once freed, can be called back to help us in battle. In the demo I have only found one and it distributed healing items.
Battle Frenzy
I deliberately left this second mode because the developers had a nice idea. The roguelite element was only introduced in this mode, which is ultimately a wave-based gauntlet with a boss fight at the end. This allows us not to distort the main campaign with too much randomness.
We will have waves of enemies, also very diversified and original. At the end of each wave we can purchase different perks and upgrades, some with both bonuses and penalties, to face subsequent waves up to boss fights. Compared to the story mode, the bosses are even more refined and interesting, not to mention the aesthetic aspect.
I repeat: it’s a good thing that they put the roguelite element only for this mode because from what I’ve tried, it seems very “breakable”.
My two cents
Super Alloy Crush seems to have all it takes to be a valid product. The aesthetics, the audio section and its design scream out loud: “90s!” and the developers themselves said they were inspired by the Mega Man series. Far be it from me to give an evaluation of a product of which I have only played a demo, but the pad feeling in hand and its fast and fun mechanics impressed me. The idea of putting the roguelite element only in the Battle Frenzy mode is interesting, so as not to make the single player (or even multiplayer) campaign trivial.
I hope for even greater complexity and variety of stages, considering the fact that, not in the demo, you can build the character. So a little more difficulty, not artificial, wouldn’t hurt.
For the rest, Super Alloy Crush seems to have started off on the right foot and you can try and download the demo for free on STEAM, to form your own opinion.
Code offered in preview by developers.
