Today is the day of another review of a Beat'em Up, but one of those very classic and well known Beat'em Up of the Arcade machines, whose gameplay is simple, but at the same time quite addictive and very funny. The amount of games of the Beat'em Up genre that there are in the industry is incredibly big, in its time it was one of the most overexploited videogames genres, so it is normal that there are so many types of games of this style and although logically not all of them are good or memorable, the Beat'em Up that I will talk about today has the NEOGEO stamp, so we are in front of a pretty good title.
As I have said hundreds of times and as is usual in games of this genre, the story is extremely simple. Robo Army places us in the future, a future where robots are already a normal part of society, so it's quite common to see them interact with people. We are in Neo Detroid, when suddenly the villain of the day, Dr.Jeed, has created an army of robots that he has called "Hell Jeed", by using this huge army of robots has managed to dominate the world and has caused chaos and destruction in every corner of the planet. However, to restore peace and eliminate "Hell Jeed" along with its creator, Maxima and Rocky appear on the scene, which are robots that will fight against an entire army to save humanity. Robo Army has a simple story like many, with a plot so inexistent and dispensable, it is only a pretext for our characters to go to deliver punches and kicks to our enemies.
Robo Army is not the best exponent of graphic quality, however, is one of those games that transmits the "retro" in each of its pixels. Because this game puts us some years in the future, we will be able to see scenarios with "futuristic" elements, very cyberpunk, therefore places like cities, interiors of buildings have characteristics that make them see "the future", of course, the future they thought would be the developers of the game.
We will also see other types of scenarios such as jungles, in which vegetation abounds and we will not see so many technological elements. But despite not being a game with great graphic quality, the scenarios have pretty good details and that gives a certain level of depth, added to this, we can also see a more than adequate color palette, it is not a game with excessively bright colors, but it is a pretty striking game.
The sprites of the characters are quite good, with a relatively moderate size, we will be able to see different types of robots, although as for the enemies, these do not vary much in design, as they are only limited to be robots with different colors or with some different elements such as weapons, but with the same design, there is very little variety of enemies. Our characters, logically, are the most different robots of all, so they stand out much more than the others. Although there will also be variants of animal robots, like dogs, spiders, lizards, bats and even a big gorilla. The final bosses are the ones with bigger sprites, but in terms of design, they are not very original, but they are very well designed.
The music in this game is fine, they serve their purpose, but there is no memorable tune that we will remember this game by, that is, in many other video games, regardless of their genre, we can find some or all of the tunes that we automatically associate with that specific game, On the other hand, in Robo Army we won't find that kind of melodies and although they are not bad, in fact they are quite good for the kind of game that it is, since we will be able to listen to many action melodies, with aggressive rhythms and musical tones full of dynamism, but there is no one that is catchy enough for us to remember. On the other hand, the sound effects are much better, there is quite a variety, and sound effects such as blasts of explosions, voices of characters when they perform certain action or simply the sound of some metal object is heard quite well.
Robo Army is a simple Beat'em Up like many, our character of choice will be able to punch, kick and also jump, and ready, there is no more, with that simplicity in terms of mechanical and playable Robo Army, we will have to go through a series of scenarios full of other enemy robots, defeat them and reach the final boss of each stage.
Despite being an extremely simple game, it is really entertaining, although perhaps compared with other Beat'em Up this has a kind of gameplay a little more "static", so to speak, as our characters do not have a set of movements and attacks very varied. But as every good game of this genre we will be able to use certain objects of the stage to attack our enemies, even robotic parts that drop some enemies after we attack them, we will be able to use them as weapons, this aspect is quite original. Similarly, as in other Beat'em Up there will be power-up items, as well as items that recover our character's life bar, as well as attack power-up items, allowing us to make a special attack.
The fights against the final bosses are the most fun, although they are also a little frustrating, each final boss will have its own pattern of attacks and skills, however, due to the low mobility that our characters have, there are certain attacks that are very difficult to avoid, and others are simply impossible if we are in a place where we do not have a chance to avoid them, this aspect can be a little stressful. Robo Army has two characters to choose from, Maxima and Rocky, of which have almost the same gameplay, only with the variant of the special attack type, in addition, our protagonists can be transformed into vehicles, which become invulnerable for a few seconds, so it is quite useful to eliminate several enemies at once.
Robo Army is a Beat'em Up of the classics, and a proof of little improvement in the games of this genre over the years and although its mechanics are simple, it is still a really entertaining title, especially if we play it with a friend.
