Bud Spencer and Terence Hill – Slaps and Beans

Genre: Arcade Brawler

Players: 1-2 Co-Op (Local)

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Review:

Bud Spencer and Terence Hill – Slaps and Beans is an arcade brawler starring the two titular Italian actors of Western genre films from the late 1960s through the earlier eighties. Which… has to be one of the more extreme examples of a game with a niche target audience I can recall seeing in a while.

As someone who has never seen any Bud Spencer or Terence Hill films, I can’t really comment on how accurately they are portrayed here, I can only comment on the game itself. And this game is… well, very bizarre. The game has a T rating, and one of the opening scenes depicts an attempted rape… yet the game’s plot has all the maturity of a children’s cartoon, with slapstick to match (complete with overblown sound effects). I find myself struggling to understand just who this game is for, exactly.

The funny thing is that the game’s visuals and sound, at least are pretty good, with well-animated pixellated characters in beautifully-rendered environments, and even an opening song straight out of an old Western… which would make for a great presentation if it wasn’t ruined at the next terrible joke or silly noise.

As for the gameplay, it’s some fairly standard fare for a side-scrolling brawler, although I had some frustration with the controls, which didn’t seem very consistent. And even when the game does work properly, there doesn’t seem to be enough variety in the combat to really push you to keep playing. There are minigames interspersed with the main brawler gameplay, but for the most part this game is a pretty standard co-op brawler.

If a game like Slaps and Beans came out three or four decades ago, it might have had an audience, albeit perhaps a cult audience. But in 2019, this game is not only trying to entice players who have likely never heard of Bud Spencer and Terence Hill, but who are either too young to be playing this game, or too old to find its brand of humor amusing. Add to that some standard brawler gameplay that does nothing especially noteworthy, and this is a game that doesn’t really seem to be made for anyone.

tl;dr – Slaps and Beans is a pretty standard Brawler based on a pair of semi-obscure Italian Western stars from a half a century ago. While it’s not without its good qualities, the gameplay isn’t especially noteworthy, and the game’s juvenile sense of humor isn’t well-suited to its T rating. If you’re looking for the next great brawler to play on the Switch, look elsewhere.

Grade: C

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