If I'm not going to be able to review old school games, I may as well stick to games that are designed to look and feel like them.
It's not like they're hard to find. I feel like in the last few years, there's been a huge increase of throwback style games released on modern consoles. It makes sense, people who grew up gaming in the 90's are now old enough to program their own games. Couple that with the fact that it's easier than ever for small teams of developers to get together, create a game and release it to a wide audience and its only logical that this would happen. I think it's great personally, a lot of these games do a really good job of providing old school experiences while adding some of the better aspects of modern game design.
99 Vidas certainly fits into that category. Released in 2016, it's done in the style of an old school, 2D, arcade style beat em' up. Up to four players can get together, either in person or online, to battle their way through a series of levels filled with swarms of quirky enemies and bizarre bosses. It's producer has stated his inspiration came from games like Streets of Rage, Double Dragon and Golden Axe, though I found it most similar to the Simpsons arcade game. It wears all of its influences on its sleeve and it frequently references 90's video games and pop culture. Like many of these new but old games, 99 Vidas was created after a successful crowdfunding campaign, this time through a Brazilian called Catarse, and the influence of its native country is also on full blast.
99 Vidas features some really awesome looking 2D graphics. The characters are all well animated and their sprites are very expressive and unique. The backgrounds all look really cool and are extremely lively and detailed. The enemy sprites are great too and there are a good variety of different characters to fight. Each different enemy type has a few palette swaps, but that's pretty common in games like this. The bosses in particular are extremely detailed and expressive, which I always found to be important in beat em' ups. The sound is also excellent, it's a perfect callback to the old school games it references. I find a lot of these throwback games miss the mark here, they have the requisite bleeps and blips but they sound entirely too clean and modern. That isn't the case here.
Each character has a unique set of attacks, though all the attacks are performed with the same button commands. The button layout is pretty standard for a beat em' up, you can jump, punch, kick and activate a screen clear attack. You can also use one button special moves at the cost of some of your life. You can string the attacks together to complete combos, which allow you to do more damage but also leave you vulnerable. You will need to balance the need to keep fighting with the need to control where you are being attacked from, as enemies will attempted to fight you on all sides. This isn't the most chaotic beat em' up, I don't think there are ever more than four or so enemies on the screen at one time, but it's still a challenge to keep them all in front of you.
I think the enemy design here is excellent. For one, they all look really cool and are on theme for the Brazil-inspired environments. As I said, there is a lot of palette swapping, but at least the enemies that look similar behave differently. I think they did a really good job with the enemy AI. There is a good balance of enemies who try and get behind you, enemies who attack you directly and enemies who try and bait you into doing something stupid. You need to formulate strategies for fighting each different type of enemy, but once you do you will find the game to be incredibly balanced and fair.
At least until you fight the bosses. While it's something of a trope in games like this to have difficulty spikes at bosses, it's very pronounced here. The first two bosses aren't too bad, but after that they start to get just insane. It's annoying too because you have to start the level again if you do get killed at the boss and trust me, you will. It wouldn't be that big a deal, especially for people that are into super challenging games, but the levels themselves aren't difficult at all. There are just too many health pickups, I was playing on one player so maybe the number of item drops doesn't scale, but it was a lot. It was especially noticeable given the games that inspired 99 Vidas, where getting one small health pickup per level was standard.
While I had a good time with 99 Vidas, I feel like something was missing. I definitely picked up on the video game and 90's related humor, but I feel like a lot of stuff that was very uniquely Brazilian went over my head. I recognized that the first boss was wearing and Argentine soccer jersey, and I chuckled when he says "Oh my Evita!" when you crash your car into his arcade, but I couldn't help but feel I was missing something. There were definitely some translation errors, though it's not like this was a plot driven game. I like that the game's combat is more focused on offense than defense, but sometimes it felt like it was just too easy to button mash your way through. I would rather have that than be forced to contend with some stupid blocking and parrying mini game, but it still wasn't the ideal balance.
99 Vidas was a good, fun distraction, but I wouldn't call it a must play. I have never been a huge beat em' up fan, so that could just be me. The balance and modern conveniences help make it an easier to digest expirience than some of the games that inspired it. The leveling system and unlockables provide a little bit of depth. But the difficulty spikes are impossible to ignore and the monotony of the gameplay sets in pretty quickly. Fans of beat em' ups and old school games will find plenty to like, but it isn't for everyone. Still, the good far outweighs the bad.
7.5/10
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