Android Hunter A (Steam)

Powah Dunk | January 12, 2021 | Review | No Comments

It’s the future, androids have gone wild and only you, a lone android Hunter unit can stop them. Mega what? Nah it’s Android Hunter A of course!. Is this homage Mega or does it feign being Mighty? Read on.

Android Hunter A developed by Digiplox is the latest in “Mega Man X Inspired” platformers following titles like Mighty No 9, Gunvolt, and 20XX. In development for 5 years, the team behind the game has hoped to create an itch scratching title with enough differences to make it stand out.

Visually Android Hunter A is a mess of ideas, poor graphics, and the occasional good idea. None of the artworks with the background, everything seems a little slapped together and the animations are painfully stiff. The levels are as diverse as you would expect from a title inspired by MegaMan and some of the bosses have good designs but the art direction is frankly instantly off-putting.

There were a good few graphical bugs when I played through the game but upon looking at the game now there has been a considerable amount of patches. The graphical bugs haven’t factored into my score for this reason but the art direction remains.

Gameplay if you have ever played Mega Man or indeed Mega Man X you’ll know exactly what to expect and I mean EXACTLY. Aside from the character customization which can get a little wacky and the “rage” attack A can do, the game is beat by beat the Mega Man X.

The first stage is a rather flat “remake” of the first stage of X down to the theme and indeed the way it ends, what follows is the standard “choose a boss” screen which determines the order you play, the stage, and what power you get at the end.

You’ll run, jump and shoot until you come up against the Android of the stage in which case your focus will be learning the pattern or exploiting the elemental weakness, wash & rinse until the day is saved.

While imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, there comes a point where character customization isn’t quite the hook you need. We’ve had titles jump in to replace the Blue Bomber such as Gunvolt and Mighty No 9 (though we would go with Mighty Gunvolt over “that” game) and indeed, Rock himself came back in the polished and very safe Mega Man 11, various collections of previous titles withstanding. Android Hunter A has nothing to offer to entice players over to it, floaty visuals, bland stage design, and the game at least last I played it had laggy menus and felt like it was held together with sticky tape from a £1 store.

I am all for games that take from Mega Man but they either need to have a unique spin on things or match the quality, Android Hunter A did neither of these things and in fact nearly had me missing Mighty No 9 which to its credit had a little more going for it. While it’s possible the floaty controls could be addressed and stages changed in a way to make them slightly more interesting, the fact is the product I reviewed at the time felt like a fan game in the early beta phase and it’s a shame that I could really find anything positive to say about it as much as I wanted to.