The Walking Vegetables: Radical Edition

Genre: 2-Stick Shooter

Players: 1-2 Co-Op (Local)

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Review:

The Walking Vegetables is a 2-Stick Shooter first released on PC in 2017, ported to Nintendo Switch in 2018, and then brought to other platforms in 2019. This game has players fighting hordes of alien invaders who just happen to look like various anthropomorphic fruits and vegetables.

As one might expect from a setup like that, this is a game that doesn’t take itself too seriously, and the pixel art presentation does a good job of ensuring that the world and its characters are full of personality, with some nice animation and great expressions for all of its characters, all with an 80s retro-style flair because why not. This is backed by a really catchy chiptune soundtrack, and combat is filled with the fun noises of the various enemies (carrots, in particular, make really amusing noises when they spin at you). Without a doubt this game’s presentation is one of its finest points, and those who buy the game for its odd premise hoping for it to match that sense of humor will not be disappointed.

As for the gameplay itself… this is a pretty standard 2-Stick Shooter, for the most part. Players must explore each section of an area, clearing enemies along the way, until they complete enough to unlock a boss confrontation. Players have a melee attack, an unlimited but slow pistol, and can pick up other weapons as well, though these have limited ammo.

There are three areas where I feel the gameplay falls short and could do with revision. Firstly, the nonlinear level design doesn’t bring much to the table here, and just makes for tedious backtracking when trying to clear an area. If there were more to do here, it would be understandable, but as-is it serves no clear purpose. Secondly, the way enemies randomly spawn when you enter an area every time really hampers the feeling of exploring each area, since it feels like it doesn’t even matter where you go, enemies will just pop up around you. And thirdly… ultimately, combat does feel somewhat repetitive.

Still, while there are definitely areas The Walking Vegetales could use some improvement, if you’re looking for a 2-Stick Shooter with a sense of humor and a lot of personality that’s still pretty fun to play, you could do far worse

tl;dr – The Walking Vegetables is a 2-Stick shooter that has you fighting hordes of aliens that look like fruits and vegetables. The game’s open-ended design isn’t doing it any favors, and the game can get repetitive at points, but the core gameplay is fun and the presentation is so loaded with charm and personality that it still holds some appeal, even if it can’t compete with the best games in the genre.

Grade: C+

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