Back to the 90’s

Max is a game that is heavily inspired by 90’s platformers, it promises to have a good narrative and solid platforming with unique features that distinguish it from the modern competition.

After beating the game, how does it stack up? Let’s find out!

Max: Curse of the Brotherhood – Nintendo Switch – Released: 12/21/17 – $14.99

Short Review

Max: Curse of The Brotherhood is one of my favorite Switch platformers so far. Not only does it have a likable set of characters, but it also does an amazing job in taking old concepts that made platformers great and making them just as great in the modern era.

Here is the icon for the game:

Story

Max has cast a spell upon his brother Felix, and now the brother was taken hostage into a world full of monsters and wild landscapes that all have one mission: to kill you. The story wasn’t very deep, but all characters were likable and slowly grew on me. I specially liked the grandmother, who gives her soul to your marker giving it special powers that let you go on this huge journey to save your brother.

Gameplay

Max mixes side-scrolling platforming along with its marker mechanics were by either dragging with your joysticks or using the touchscreen you can create pillars, create ropes to facilitate climbing, amongst other things. The game looks very friendly and simple, but there is a lot of depth and difficulty as you dive into the game. The one thing that I don’t particularly like is that sometimes the quick time events are too quick, resulting on me dying a couple of times before I finally realize what I was supposed to do, but even then the game still feels very rewarding, so it wasn’t a very big deal.

Switch Performance

Wether portably or on the dock, Max performs pretty well. It has some frame rate issues here and there but it isn’t anywhere near unplayable. On docked mode the resolution looked a little blurry at times but it didn’t take away from the atmosphere the game managed to create. Sometimes on portable mode the darker caves of the game would look way too dark, making it almost impossible to judge where I was supposed to walk to. Overall it is completely playable, but it isn’t anywhere near impressive.

Conclusion

Max: Curse of the brotherhood has a cool story, solid gameplay and sticks true to older platformers while making them accessible to everyone in the modern-era. While the game has some dips in performance and sometimes looks too dark, it is still completely playable. For $14.99 it offers a good 6 to 8 hours worth of enjoyment, receiving my recommendation for anyone looking for a solid platformer.

UPDATE: 5/30/18

I would give this game a 8 out of 10!

Trailer: