Antonblast was provided by Summitsphere for review. Thank you!
While there are a lot of amazing platformers out there, only a handful of them still stick in my mind to this day. There are classics like Super Mario World: Super Mario Advance 2 and Sonic the Hedgehog 3, but the one that surprised me the most was released just last year. Pizza Tower brought back the Wario Land formula in an incredible way, creating an incredible experience that can encapsulate chaos. It was one of my favorite games by far last year and is still one I keep returning to, but if there's any game that could give it a run for its money, it's Antonblast.
If you played Pizza Tower and wanted more chaos, Antonblast is the perfect game for you. It takes from the same inspirations but puts on its own unique spin with an interesting visual style, solid voice acting, and fantastic mechanics that pair almost perfectly with the level design. I was quite surprised while playing the game in a multitude of ways, even though I had played the demo. And while it can start to skirt the lines of being a little too chaotic and confusing in the hub area, it's easily one of the best 2D platformers this year.
Like other platformers, your goal is to get from one end of the level to the other. You can jump, dash, and swing your giant hammer to eliminate the enemies in front of you. You can also use your hammer to dash forward to gain speed and swing your hammer down to propel yourself higher than your regular jump, which will help you get to specific platforms that might be further away. You will also collect poker chips, which act as your score for the level and currency you can use to purchase collectibles and upgrades for your character in the hub world.
It's all standard for a fast-paced platformer, but the beauty of Antonblast is how it all works together and creates such glorious chaos. The feeling of smashing through lines of enemies and dashing through boxes while timing your jumps at the correct time, all while watching wooden and metal chunks fly as you run through them, always felt satisfying. I found myself always trying to speed run and keep the momentum of the dash going, which you do by timing your hammer swings to chain the boost together, and even when I failed, I never felt dismayed.
This extends to the boss battles, which I loved. Each one felt unique, and I had to think about how to beat each. The game doesn't hold your hand and tell you what to do sometimes, so you must figure out some mechanics to beat bosses.
All of this is, in part, a testament to the level design, which is one of the game's best components. Each level feels perfectly crafted to your abilities and balances challenging and easy-going. The levels also take longer to complete than I initially expected, which I appreciated. It makes each one feel like an experience, and I like how the levels end with "Happy Hour," where you have to backtrack a little to actually escape and complete the level.
Antonblast is all about destruction; hell, the main character is named Dynamite Anton, but there are many times when it feels like too much is happening all at once, making it hard to keep track of my character or what was happening on screen. Especially as the later levels became more complicated and less forgiving, the constant destruction did lead to some of my deaths. I also found some controls a little floaty, like swinging your hammer down to bounce around. This may be on purpose since most other controls feel very tight, but I found it hard to accurately get to platforms when I needed to bounce.
I love the game's aesthetic, as well as the sound and voice acting. It all works together nicely to create a retro-inspired look and feel, which lends well to this type of experience. The levels feel unique and different from each other visually, going from caverns filled with water to desert-like mine shafts from one level to the next. Coupled with the ambient sounds, explosion, and soundtrack, it kept my blood pumping as I raced from one end to the other.
The story itself is okay and passable, but I wouldn't consider it a highlight of the game. Anton and his co-worker Annie, who you can also play with, are chilling at home on one fine day, but Satan barges in and steals all of Anton's spirits from his collection. Now, he has to fight Satan and his cronies to steal back the spirits that were stolen from him...which he stole from a bar that he used to frequent. It's a solid story that sets the scene, and with the decent voice acting, I was very pleased with it.
And even though there is a little bit of an issue playing for a long time, Antonblast is quite enjoyable on the Steam Deck.
Antonblast started wonderfully on the Steam Deck. It was perfectly hitting 60 FPS with a battery drain sitting around 8W or lower, which is exactly what I would have expected for a game like this. However, while the game is understandably performing like this, it also has one more pressing issue that happens the longer you play.
I noticed that after playing for an extended period of time, putting the Deck to sleep, and turning it back on, the game could start draining significantly more, going upwards of 14W, which is so much more than what the game needs. I tested this a couple of times, and it seems there is a possibility the drain can just start spiking as you play. If you don't care about battery drain, this won't become an issue, but playing this for an extended period on long trips or car rides may become an issue if you don't monitor the battery drain:
There is a specific accessibility tab where you can toggle photosensitivity mode and subtitles, but that's all there. Outside of that, you can change vibration intensity, the hitstop effects, audio sliders, screenshake sensitivity, and change keybindings.
There is no 16:10 resolution support here, but there are both cloud saves and controller support. There are no HDR settings.
Antonblast is a fantastic, fast-paced 2D platformer that is hard to put down. The gameplay and level design are wonderful and mix exceptionally well with the tight mechanics, diverse visuals and locations, and pumping soundtrack. Later levels get a little harder and can feel unfair, while the constant destruction can clutter the screen, but it's all worthwhile to endure to keep on playing.
For the most part, playing on the Steam Deck is delightful, and although the battery drain can increase the longer you play, it's still well within a playable capacity and sticks to 60 FPS no matter what. If you enjoy platformers and Pizza Tower, this is a must-have game for your portable library!
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
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Antonblast is a fantastic 2D platformer that invokes the feelings of Wario Land and Pizza Tower, while also being very playable on the Steam Deck.
