Review code supplied by game’s developers.

When I was asked if I like brawlers I answered, ‘Yeah, Smash and Brawlhalla are fun’. I was then sent a review code for 99 Vidas, as I’d had more experience with fighting/ brawler games then Adam had!

Story

The game starts out with King (the protagonist) driving to an undisclosed location. Unfortunately for him, his car breaks down along the way. Being a logical man, King sets out to find a mechanic but is stopped by some thugs; something King is puzzled by.

For some reason, the thugs decide to attack him and a brawl ensues. After defeating the first bunch, King realizes that on his way to the mechanic, he will have to brawl a varied cast of zany characters with hilarious dialogues. Zany characters like a Medusa looking fella and a man wearing frog clothing.

I never really got to know why the thugs don’t want you at their shop. The game unfortunately didn’t manage to keep my attention long enough for me to figure out why, but I enjoyed the funny dialogues nevertheless.

Gameplay

While 99 Vidas and Super Smash Bros could in theory be classified as the same genre, they are vastly different. I was mistaken for comparing the two when booting 99 Vidas up.

99 Vidas is a side scrolling beat ’em up where enemies come at you in waves, with little breaks in between to fill in story beats. Super Smash Bros in contrast, is a free for all where you beat your buddies to a pulp.

The game is sectioned into stages and each stage is concluded by a boss fight at the end. The boss is usually a single enemy much stronger than the rest of the usual thugs.

Some of the stages have hazards. An example of this is the Black Friday stage, where there are waves of men with leopard masks running towards you. If you’re in their way they will damage you, but what I like is that if they hit an enemy it will also damage them; a nice touch.

After beating the bosses and clearing the stages, the player gets to upgrade or unlock combos. The first combo you unlock lets you freeze an enemy. I like the system of unlocking combos/ special moves because they are introduced in an organic way. As you get stronger you slowly unlock better moves, which the player can pick and choose to suit their play style.

The repetitiveness of the enemy waves got stale quickly for me. However, I did get my first power up early on, and while it made the game fresher and enough to keep me hooked a bit longer, the following power ups onwards didn’t.

Art and Music

The graphical art style of 99 Vidas is pixel art, and I love pixel art! Plus, with fitting chip tune sound direction, the graphics and the music match well together.

There’s really not much to say about the art direction, if you know you love the retro look and feel, you’ll most likely love 99 Vidas’s art style.

Problems

My main problem with 99 Vidas is the game’s repetitive nature. The endless waves of enemies is not for me and honestly resulted in me not finishing the game’s story. I get that some people might want that in a game, but it’s not for me, not for long playing sessions at least.

Furthermore,when I first booted up the game I couldn’t pair my joy cons with game in handheld mode. Therefore, I had to pop the joy cons out, which then registered them. This was a one-time occurrence, when I later picked up the game it registered the joycons. So perhaps this was a unique problem for me and my Switch.

Summary

I really wanted to like 99 Vidas because I liked the game’s humour and art direction. However, the game unfortunately falls flat on its repetitiveness. I can see myself picking 99 Vidas up again but it would really only be on days when I just need to tune out for a bit and play in short bursts.

If the game gave me longer breaks, to comprehend what happened, as well as a little more moving ground, I could see myself picking the game up some more.

Therefore, I have a hard time figuring out the type of person whom I’d recommend 99 Vidas to, maybe if you’re a huge brawler fan you’d enjoy the game more than me- but maybe wait till it goes on sale.

Therefore I give 99 Vidas by QUByte Interactive my rating of

What’s your favourite brawler on the Switch? Let us know over on Twitter or join the Switch Indie Fix Discord Server!

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Latest Posts Inuk Bastian first appeared on episode 14 of the Switch Indie Fix podcast, where he got inspired to write reviews for Switch Indie Fix. Besides doing SIF stuff, Bastian studies Humanistic Technologies on the Institute for People and Technology, Roskilde University. Bastian has an amazing YouTube channel “Bastian Does Tech”. Latest posts by Inuk see all) 99 Vidas: Definitive Edition Review - January 10, 2019

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