Battlesloths

Genre: 2-Stick Shooter / Party Game

Players: 1-4 Competitive (Local)

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Review:

Battlesloths is a Two-Stick Shooter with a focus on arena-based multiplayer gameplay comparable to a Party Game. Players take the role of sloths wearing all manner of ridiculous hats and compete in a variety of different modes, generally involving collecting pizza slices either from the arena itself or fallen enemies.

The presentation here is amusing, and leans heavily into meme territory, with somewhat well-animated goofy-looking pixel art sloths in cutscenes imitating various memes, and a good portion of the hats they wear referencing some character or bit many of us are familiar with. This is presented alongside energetic music that works well enough for the game, but is fairly forgettable. Overall, for a Party Game atmosphere, this works reasonably well.

The gameplay here is pretty good. There’s nothing truly remarkable about it – it’s a fairly straightforward two-stick shooter, but there’s a good variety of weapons, as well as a good variety of arenas to compete in.

That said, there is one complaint I have here, and it took me a while to figure out just what it was, this thing that was keeping me from having more fun than I felt like I should have been in this sort of game. After all, I just said the gameplay was good and varied, so what’s the problem?

Well, here’s the thing – matches in Battlesloths are pretty fast. One hit kills in this game, and with some of the bullet-spewing and explosive-causing weapons getting tossed around, as well as deathtraps and hazards, it’s not too difficult to get killed, at which point, you’ll have to wait a few seconds to respawn back at your base. Oh, did you run out of bullets? Yeah, that happens quickly too, since guns don’t come with much ammo and there aren’t ammo pickups, so you’d better go grab another weapon quick, and probably get killed in the attempt. Oh, the match is over? Well, be prepared to take some time looking at results screens and loading screens before you can pop back into another match.

Do you see the running theme here? While the gameplay in Battlesloths is fun, in multiple ways this game is constantly breaking up that fun and making the player wait, and in a fast-paced party game, constantly stopping the action for players and making them wait is a surefire recipe for frustration.

It was this yin and yang of solid gameplay and frustrating waiting that made me feel like I really enjoyed Battlesloths, but didn’t want to keep playing it. It’s a fun game that just feels too bothersome to deal with. And while it is absolutely not a terrible game, I feel like it’s definitely a game with some fundamental flaws that keep its core strengths from really shining through.

tl;dr – Battlesloths is a multiplayer-focused 2-Stick Shooter with a Party Game atmosphere where players take the role of pizza-loving sloths fighting in various arenas with an assortment of weaponry. The core gameplay here is good, but the constant stop-go pattern of action and waiting is frustrating and makes it hard to enjoy that fun gameplay.

Grade: C+

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