Brotato

Genre: Arcade / Roguelike

Players: 1-2 Co-Op (Local)

The Nintendo Switch 2 Difference

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Review:

(Note: This game is included in Brotato + Space Gladiators Bundle, along with Space Gladiators.)

Brotato is an Arcade-style Roguelike in the “Bullet Heaven” style of game made popular by Vampire Survivors. In this game, players take the role of an anthropomorphic white potato fighting off hostile aliens in an enclosed area.

The presentation is one of this game’s weaker elements, with simple hand-drawn 2D characters that look generic and unmemorable, backed by energetic but forgettable music. It’s all functional, but it does almost nothing to make for a truly distinct entry in the genre. What’s more, on Nintendo Switch, it suffers from slowdown when things get particularly busy, though this can be forgiven somewhat as this is a common issue within this style of game.

Thankfully, the gameplay manages to be far more interesting than the presentation. One common hurdle games of this style run into is that they struggle to improve on or differentiate themselves from Vampire Survivors, and Brotato manages to do that wonderfully by focusing on the Roguelike elements of the genre – as you progress, you’ll encounter tons of upgrades to spend in-game currency on, as well as a plethora of unlockable characters, all begging you to find just the right synergy of elements. You could focus on a melee-based character, a ranged character, a magical character, an engineer with automated turrets, a character with tons of helper pets… or some combination of the above.

This game does an excellent job with risk-reward elements as well – most upgrades improve one thing but detract from another, so players need to decide if they’re trying to balance out their stats by spreading around the focus of their purchases, or choosing a specialty and pouring their money into that while ignoring other opportunities. What’s more, players can get up to 6 weapons (depending on their character), and can power-up weapons by combining duplicates. So do you try to get just one or two weapons so you’re more likely to be able to combine them? Or diversify?

The other thing Brotato gets right in relation to Vampire Survivors is the price – at $5, this is an easy game to say yes to without feeling like it’s much of a risk, and it’s different enough from Vampire Survivors that you don’t feel like it’s too difficult to answer the question “why get this when Vampire Survivors exists?”

Overall, I think Brotato is a solid “Bullet Heaven”-style Arcade Roguelike, and well worth its minimal $5 price tag. If you enjoy the genre, this is definitely a game worth picking up, even if the presentation leaves something to be desired.

tl;dr – Brotato is a “Bullet Heaven”-style Arcade Roguelike in the same vein as Vampire Survivors, with a strong focus on the Roguelike elements that helps to set it apart within the genre. The presentation here isn’t great, but as long as you can get past that, this is an excellent game well worth its low $5 price tag.

Grade: B+

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The Nintendo Switch 2 Difference

Brotato – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition

Genre: Arcade / Roguelike

Players: 1-4 Co-Op (Local), GameShare Support

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Review:

Brotato received a free Nintendo Switch 2 Edition upgrade, and while it may not be the most aesthetically-impressive game out there, that’s not to say there isn’t potential for improvement here. Let’s have a look and see what this version of the game adds.

The eShop page claims that this version of the game features a higher resolution and framerate, and while I can’t say I see much of a difference in the resolution, there is certainly a noticeable improvement in the framerate, and I didn’t see any of the slowdown that occasionally marred the Nintendo Switch version.

However, this version goes a step farther than that and increases the multiplayer count from 2 players in the Nintendo Switch release to 4 players in this version, with support for GameShare no less.

Finally, there’s a notable difference in loading times – the Nintendo Switch release of this game took me 21 second to load to the main menu, and another 2 seconds to load up a game after selecting a character and weapon, while the Nintendo Switch 2 Edition release drops these times down to 9 seconds and 1 second.

Overall, I think this is a pretty nice improvement in the Nintendo Switch 2 version, well worth the price tag of… uh… free. Given that this game is already an inexpensive $5, it’s even more of a no-brainer here, and absolutely worth picking up for fans of this genre.

tl;dr – Brotato is a “Bullet Heaven”-style Arcade Roguelike in the same vein as Vampire Survivors, with a strong focus on the Roguelike elements that helps to set it apart within the genre. The presentation here isn’t great, but as long as you can get past that, this is an excellent game well worth its low $5 price tag.

Grade: A-

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