RetroRealms: Ash vs Evil Dead

Genre: Action-Platformer

Players: 1, Online Leaderboards

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Review:

(Note: This game is included in RetroRealms Double Feature: Halloween and Ash vs Evil Dead, along with RetroRealms: Halloween.)

The RetroRealms series of games from developer WayForward Technologies and publisher Boss Team Games has been designed with the goal of creating retro-style Action-Platformers based on classic movie franchises while connecting these games through the franchise’s “RetroRealms Arcade”, a First-Person virtual arcade where you can peruse the games you’ve acquired and check out bonus content you’ve unlocked by playing the games. Players are also being enticed by having games in the series players acquire unlock characters and content hidden in other games in the series.

You can see this in action in the first two (and as of this writing, only) games in the series – RetroRealms: Halloween, and RetroRealms: Ash vs Evil Dead, where players who purchase both games can play each game’s protagonist in the other, making use of different abilities and seeing a different version of that game’s story play out.

By default, Ash vs Evil Dead has you playing the original (not remake) film and TV franchise’s chainsaw-armed, gun-toting protagonist, Ash Williams, whose trailer park is invaded by an inter-dimensional being calling itself The Overlord, who steals the Necronomicon, leaving behind one of its magic eyeballs, which Ash picks up figuring it will help him as he chases after The Overlord to get back the evil book.

It’s an interesting premise, but the game that results is a pretty standard Action-Platformer where players can unlock additional moves throughout the game and can use the aforementioned eyeball to temporarily shift over to a viscera-covered dark dimension where enemies and pathways differ somewhat from the normal world. This element is handled in a clunky manner, with players only able to enter and exit this realm while standing and not moving, and unable to swap back again until a second or two has passed. This clunkiness extends to other parts of the gameplay, such as a downward aerial attack that I found to be extremely unreliable, as well as hit detection that seemed a bit iffy at times.

Also, the added content you get from owning both games seems pretty weak. Yes, the dialogue between characters is different, but the game overall remains largely the same regardless of which character you’re using, and unlike the Halloween game, the enemies don’t even seem to change this time – for some reason, even Michael Meyers is just as down for fighting Evil Dead’s “deadites” as Ash normally is. Plus, the different abilities of these characters don’t make them play drastically differently either – for example, Michael Meyers can use his charge attack to dash and Ash can use his to fire a shotgun, but the move set of the two characters is otherwise mostly the same.

At the very least, the presentation here is good,, with detailed pixel art visuals with good animation, and buckets of blood splashing all over and even dripping down the screen at times. In addition, the game’s synthesized soundtrack fits the carnage well.

However, unless you’re a fan of the franchise it’s derived from, I can’t see myself recommending RetroRealms: Ash vs Evil Dead to you. It’s mostly a competent Action-Platformer, but not a great one. And the promising cross-compatibility between different games in the series doesn’t amount to very much. Unless the main reason you’re getting this is to play as Ash (or whatever other RetroRealms characters you’ve unlocked), I suggest you go for one of numerous other better games in the genre.

tl;dr – RetroRealms: Ash vs Evil Dead is an Action-Platformer based on the Evil Dead horror franchise and promising the potential to swap in content from other RetroRealms games you’ve bought. However, the game itself is merely decent, not great, and the extra features you can unlock aren’t worth the hype. Unless you’re a huge fan of the source material, you should stick to better games in the genre.

Grade: C+

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