Oh Alloy Mushroom, you know the way to a man’s heart, his wife’s drawers, and the number to the safe that keeps the Macguffin protected from prying eyes. CRT scanlines and curve from the outset in Super Alloy Crush? You may as well take my PIN. What a great start to a classic retro arcade experience.
Note the retro here is paying homage to the era, for this is a new IP, don’t you know? So new, it’s not fully ready, as it’s in Early Access. Games in this process are on a spectrum, as some are practically good to go and just awaiting feedback from Johnny Public, while others are an absolute shambles and should be put to a quick, permadeath. How does this one fare? It’s excellent.
Super Alloy Crush is a rogue-like in the style of something called Mega Man. Have you heard of it? Anyhoo, you get to start your experience as a Muu – a melee robot brawler, or Kelly – a marksman that specialises in ranged attacks. Interestingly, Muu looks more like ‘a Muu’ and robot-like, whereas Kelly is more Kelly-like and comparable to a human. It’s irrelevant. Time for some descriptions and opinions.
The two meet up as hunters, but are intercepted by a naughty queen (not a slur) and her sisters(?), who are intent on causing havoc with their robot army. Your job isn’t to befriend them in some family-safe Nintendo jolly, but kill ‘em all and grab some coins in the process. It’s immediately playable with intuitive controls that glide quite effortlessly. From the standard double jump through to a double-tap in one direction for a dash, both characters move swiftly, and the basic attacks are easy to chain and enforce. No doubt we have a special move, and lo and behold, you can perform an overdrive, which is a limited dance step that unleashes devastating power.
Ah, but that’s not all. Progressing through the stages unlocks new moves that serve more like a Street Fighter game than a typical run-and-gun side scroller. Moves won’t be basic button presses, but left, right, Y, jump up and down and touch your toes. This works really well and matches the fluidity of the way Super Alloy Crush moves. While the music is pretty good, its tempo doesn’t quite fit with the gameplay and reminds me of sped-up supermarket music DJ’d by some erratic person in a hurry to get home. I did actually like it, despite it going rogue.
With all the Cosmos Coins collected from kills, they can be invested at your Rangers HQ to augment your stats through a Dredge-like, Tetris thingy, where you have to strategically place the upgrades within the limited space. These can add elemental damage, improve attack, as well as more health, among other things. A small vessel follows you, which aids recovery when you die, but also sports some seats for your support crew who can be summoned to replenish some health, SP for special moves, and EXP (I think) that serves as the juice for your overdrive. Space can be upgraded to house more support, plus other boosts such as automatically collecting Cosmos Coins for you.
You’ll note that I’m not covering the actual game. The thing is, these side scrollers are pretty damn self-explanatory. What makes Super Alloy Crush unique isn’t just the cool visuals and crazy shopping music, but the movesets. Within the Rangers HQ, you can unlock movesets such as uppercuts and strikes that complement the overdrive feature, and you can use these moves to reassign in a loadout. Upon existing HQ, you can explore a healthy number of stages in the Story mode (though bear in mind this is still in development), as well as modes such as Battle Frenzy, Ultimate, and another one which I’ve just forgotten, which serves as a challenge option where you can widen the goal posts.
Muu was initially my go-to, but not long into it, I continued with Kelly, as his ranged attacks were great at keeping enemies at bay and being able to dominate in the air. This did make the Story much easier, aside from a few difficulties with the bosses, and I never experienced a game over. Battle Frenzy was different. It’s a survival mode that features multiple waves followed by a boss. Between waves, you can stack up buffs to improve your stats through the coins earned, then once complete, select a new area. This was a much harder mode, but I really enjoyed it.
And, while speaking of hard, Ultimate features harder-hitting enemies with larger health pools. Almost every other enemy is an epic type, though it offers a bigger payout. Taking into consideration the escalating challenges and the Early Access roadmap of more levels and characters, I must say that Super Alloy Crush is quite possibly one of my favourite games in this, what, sub-genre? It’s beautifully presented, has incredibly slick gameplay, plus there’s loads more depth with the augmentation chips and movesets. I really like this one and am trying not to say something like I have a crush on it.
