Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
Guacamelee! Super Turbo Championship Edition is a platforming action adventure game available for download from the PlayStation Store for the PS4. Guacamelee! Super Turbo Championship Edition is an enhanced port of Guacamelee! that released on PS3 and Vita in April 2013 and is brought to you by the developers of Tales From Space: Mutant Blobs Attack and Tales From Space: About A Blob.
It is immediately important to state that Guacamelee! Super Turbo Championship Edition is not just a 1080P and 60FPS version of what has already went before it, but is actually a genuine attempt to improve upon what was already an absolutely exceptional game, which must be commended for effort and fan service! Guacamelee! Super Turbo Championship Edition features new powers, such as INTENSO, which is best used when surrounded by enemies and when Juan has a very small amount of health remaining as INTENSO increases the speed and damage of your attacks, alongside increasing the speed of your general movement, although it will only last for a brief duration. There is a major extension to Juan’s story as there are also two brand new huge levels areas called Volcano and Canal, alongside a new enemy boss called El-Trio a.k.a. Terrible Trio, which actually has its own origins of how El-Trio came to be, while the El Infierno level from the Guacamelee! downloadable content on PS3 and Vita has been integrated, a new Elite enemy class has been included and much more besides including new costumes with their own strengths and weaknesses.
The story sees you taking on the role of the character Juan who is out for a stroll to help the townsfolk when suddenly upon the return of El Presidente’s Daughter, El Presidente’s mansion goes up in flames only for the bad guys to turn up out of nowhere when Juan rushes in to save the day. They send Juan to the underworld were along the way he is resurrected by a Luchador mask, which transforms Juan from a normal man with some strength into a Luchador with super strength and abilities to fight the leader of the underworld and his posse of bad guys from what is otherwise a very nice and tranquil place.
The powers of the Luchador mask provide for some great characteristics from the abilities that it grants Juan, such as being able to swap dimensions. Beyond the unfolding story, there are also side quests with rather funny stories of their own including the Chicken Herding quest that involves a man who asks you for help after his chickens have escaped their pen. “Punch them! Throw them! It’s okay, my chickens are the toughest around!” exclaims the rather fond chicken loving man as he wears his nachos hat like a cowboy.
There is a store that allows you to purchase all manner of abilities and costumes; providing that you have the appropriate amount of dollars, which are earned as rewards for completing missions and side quests, alongside killing enemies and bosses. The abilities range from increasing Juan’s health and stamina to increasing the damage dealt from special attacks, such as the Suplex, Piledriver, Das Boot, Aimed Throw and Stun Boost with each upgrade having multiple levels at varying costs that increase for each level of improvement. The costumes can be purchased using silver dollars that are earned from completing tasks with each costume having its own name, description, strengths and weaknesses, such as the Pollo Luchador chicken costume that has the ability of health regeneration as a strength, but stamina regenerates at a slower rate as a form of weakness, while the Piñata costume has the ability to allow you to earn money faster as a strength, but is extremely fragile as a form of weakness.
There are a number of different enemies to encounter, such as small and large skeletons, dragons, strange oversized animals and many more besides with all of the enemies looking completely different and unique from one another; showing great strength in enemy design, which is actually as amazing as the environment design.
The dimension swapping mechanic of the gameplay really adds to its platforming routes as in certain areas you will need to switch from one dimension were a platform does not exist to the other dimension were it does exist and then back again and so on, until you have reached the peak of your vertical climb. There are other areas of the game were you will be attacked by multiple enemies at the simultaneously with some of the enemies only capable of being damaged and repelled from one dimension and the rest of the enemies in the other dimension. This means that the dimension swapping mechanic will see you regularly switching back and forth between the two dimensions, but it is used sparingly enough and at an appropriate pace that it never becomes a one trick pony of a gimmick, which is a rather positive design choice from the game developers.
The humour of the game is as you would anticipate from a DrinkBox game as they developed one of the PlayStation Vita’s best downloadable games and arguably one of the best of the PlayStation Vita’s back catalogue of games in the form of Tales From Space: Mutant Blobs Attack, so if you haven’t played it yet then don’t hesitate to download it immediately from the PlayStation Store! The billboards from Mutant Blobs Attack remain here with advertisements for alcohol and a wrestling match between “Business Cat vs. Bachelor Frog” and another between “La Mascara vs. Mega Hombre” with all of the characters including the cat and frog dressed in masks and Mexican wrestling attire. The humour is very evident particularly from the speech bubble driven conversations as you approach a woman only to have her tell you, “It’s true, I was a real mamacita in the old days. You better believe it!” In another conversation, Fray says, “Ohohoho…this is better than watching my telenovelas!” after watching a conversation between El Presidente’s Daughter and Juan.
Guacamelee! Super Turbo Championship Edition supports the share feature that allows you to upload a video clip to Facebook or Twitter; upload a screen shot to Facebook or Twitter; and broadcast live gameplay footage via Twitch or Ustream as you are experiencing the game with a simple tap of the share button and selecting the option of your choice. The PS4’s hard-drive continuously stores your most recent fifteen minutes of gameplay footage, so you still have the chance to decide if you would like to share something amazing a few minutes after it has taken place. The share feature is a next-gen revolution that has only improved with the further customisation provided by the Share Factory app that allows commentary, music, themes, stickers, effects, text, picture-in-picture video between your game footage and your reaction from the PlayStation Camera and much more besides, which will only continue to prosper and flourish as it matures with additional features and further experimentation in the future.
Guacamelee! supported cross-buy and cross-save between the Vita and PS3 versions, although unfortunately the same functionality and compatibility has not been extended to the PS4 version. This means that if you already own the Vita and PS3 versions, but you want to play the PS4 version; you would have to purchase it again, although the PS4 version does contain new content and a special discount is available for everyone that owns the PS3 and Vita versions, which reduces the price of the PS4 version from £11.49 to a very respectable and rewarding price of just £3.29! As for the lack of cross-save resulting in you having to start the game from the beginning, a clear solution is to start from the beginning on PS4, but to continue your progression on the Vita as the PS4’s Guacamelee! Super Turbo Championship Edition supports remote play; you can technically continue on playing the PS4 version anywhere you want to with the same save file during remote play.
Guacamelee! Super Turbo Championship Edition supports the remote play feature that allows you to play almost any PS4 game on your PlayStation Vita via a Wi-Fi internet connection by pairing up the PS4 and Vita via configuring the settings on your PS4 to enable the Vita to connect to it, then entering the code provided from the settings menu on the Vita’s PS4 Link application with the initial setup taking around only two minutes. Guacamelee! Super Turbo Championship Edition’s performance during remote play is amazing, particularly in regards to the graphics and audio as it performs exactly as you would expect the PS4 version to do so with accurately mapped controls that allows you to still be able to easily perform fighting combos as effortlessly as you can on the DualShock 4 controller as the face buttons remain identical in their configuration, while the touch pad is swapped for the touch screen when accessing the map and current listing of objectives.
The controls are well mapped to the DualShock 4’s face buttons and touch pad and are actually easy to master, despite there being a lot of combos particularly when you begin to learn a lot of new powers as you progress further into the game. The control scheme consists of pressing X to jump between platforms, holding X for a longer jump or tapping X for a smaller jump; pressing square to attack; pressing triangle to start a conversation with someone via speech bubbles and pressing X to cycle through the speech bubbles; changing the direction of the left analogue stick or the directional pad to move your character; holding the left analogue stick in an upwards direction or pressing up on the directional pad to enter buildings; holding the left analogue stick in a downwards direction or pressing down on the directional pad while pressing X to drop to a lower platform; pressing the share button takes you to the share feature menu; and pressing the options button to display the pause menu.
As you progress further into the game there are more basic controls and special moves to learn. The additional basic controls once you have found the Luchador mask include pressing triangle to grab while holding the left analogue stick or pressing the directional pad in the direction you want to throw the object or bad guy, pressing L2 while holding the left analogue stick to the left or right or changing the direction of the right analogue stick to dodge with the later additions of pressing R2 to swap dimensions and pressing O to perform special moves.
The moves list gradually grows as you progress through the game with the moves list being split into three categories including: special moves, movement and throws with eight special moves, three movements and four throws totalling to fifteen unlockable special moves. The moves include Luchador lift which is performed by holding the left analogue stick upwards while pressing square; Downercut which is performed by holding the left analogue stick downwards while pressing square in the air and an aimed throw which is performed from a grapple by moving the left analogue stick in the direction you want to throw the object or enemy and pressing triangle.
The touch pad implementation allows you to tap the touch pad to display the map of the surrounding area, a world map and a listing of your current objectives, amongst various details regarding the area you are currently located within with a breakdown of how long you have played the game for and how far you have currently progressed. The light bar implementation is extensive as it will remain the standard blue colour when no major events are occurring, but it will flash red when you are running low on health and it will quickly cycle through a range of bright colours when you are about to have a boss fight or you have collected an item of importance, while the DualShock 4 controller will vibrate when you have been hit by an enemy.
Guacamelee! Super Turbo Championship Edition is an improvement over the PS3 and Vita versions of Guacamelee! as there is enhanced lighting, shadows and effects, more particle effects and an increased density to what is happening in your immediate surroundings and in the background too, which is all taking place at 60 frames per second and at 1080P resolution. Graphically, Guacamelee! Super Turbo Championship Edition excels brilliantly with its own take on cel shading, while still retaining a unique art style. There are beautiful lighting and shadow effects, superbly animated characters, a bright colour palette and stunning amounts of detail in general from the backdrops to the hilarious billboards that will have you stopping for a few seconds at a time to just look at everything and take it all in.
The presentation of the game is solid with a great user interface across various menus such as the main menu, options menu, online leaderboards, extras menu, store menu and gameplay menus with support for navigation via the left analogue stick, directional pad and face buttons, although it does not include support for navigation via the right analogue stick and touch pad, although that is not an issue considering the other methods of navigation that are available. The background of the menu screens is as bright and colourful as the gameplay is, which also provides a brief glimpse of the graphics that you can expect from the gameplay, while the logo of the game is at the very centre of the menu screens and certainly continues the tradition of bright and colourful graphics as though to start as you mean to go on.
As the characters do not have voice-overs; their communication is displayed via speech bubbles, resulting in the audio lacking in any voice-overs other than the occasional evil laughter here or there, although this allows the rather appropriate Mexican music to the forefront which does well to help tie the overall Mexican theme together, alongside various sound effects, such as Juan’s jumping, rolling, punching and special moves as well as the reaction from enemies when they have been hit with a punch or special move by Juan, while there are also ambient sound effects, such as birds tweeting and chickens clucking as you chase after them. Unfortunately, there is no DualShock 4 speaker implementation, which is surprising as it could have been utilised to produce the music or sound effects.
The trophy list includes thirty-one trophies with seventeen bronze trophies, seven silver trophies, six gold trophies and one platinum trophy. The trophy list starts out ridiculously easy with the Next-Gen bronze trophy for starting a game from the second save slot and the Vita La Resurrección bronze trophy for becoming a Luchador. However, there are some naturally harder trophies, such as The Never Ending Combo silver trophy for achieving a 200 hit combo; the That Was Hard Mode gold trophy for defeating the game on hard mode; the Who Put These Here gold trophy for achieving 100% completion in all areas; and the El Savior gold trophy for accessing the alternative ending of the game by collecting all of the orbs. To compliment the hard trophies; there are also a string of trophies for defeating boss enemies, such as the That’s One Big Gato Frito bronze trophy for killing the Alebrije; the Snuffed Out bronze trophy for defeating Flame Face; the Licking His Wounds bronze trophy for defeating Jaguar Javier; and the Boom-Shacka-Calaca gold trophy for defeating Calaca, amongst other boss enemies. It should be estimated that depending upon skill and a good trophy guide to provide some helpful tips that it will take between ten to fifteen hours to platinum the trophy list.
Guacamelee! Super Turbo Championship Edition includes local co-operative multiplayer, which must be said is great to see considering how many games do not contain any form of local multiplayer, which is entertaining as it allows you to experience the entire game with a friend and has the added convenience of being drop-in/drop-out multiplayer; resulting in a friend being able to join your single player game at any given time. However, it does have its limitations as there are no friendly fire options for any form of competitive multiplayer, so it is purely co-operative and it would have been ideal to have seen some form of competitive multiplayer that would have followed the form of the boss enemy battles from the single player with both players set opposite from each other in an arena based upon an environment from the single player as the two players do battle against each other using all manner of fighting manoeuvres and due to the nature of the component of the game; perhaps it could have even supported four players.
A problem arises in the fact that there is no split-screen, so you are essentially both confined to the same screen, which causes a problem as if a player has not moved as quickly as they should do so in order to keep up the pace of the other player, then that player will only have a period of three seconds to catch up with the other player or will be rolled up into a bubble and forced to respawn around the location of the other player that had ventured ahead. Split-screen could have enabled both players to venture off on their own paths to complete the objectives each player wanted to achieve, then meet back at a midway point and perhaps even with a competitive element to complete a certain number of objectives within a set limit of time to add that extra spice to the co-operative, so you are still working towards a common goal, while also seeing who is technically better at the game. It would also have been an option to see the local co-operative multiplayer be available in the form of online co-operative multiplayer; just to provide that customary freedom for players to be able to play the single player experience locally with a friend or online with a friend and perhaps even in single player with the option of the game being open for anyone from your friends’ list or globally to join in co-operatively to help each other past a difficult area or boss enemy in the game. Despite the lack of any form of competitive multiplayer or online multiplayer and there being no split-screen multiplayer; the simultaneous drop-in/drop-out co-operative multiplayer is certainly a fun, entertaining and worthy feature.
The online leaderboards focuses on global rankings, your personal score and your friends’ scores, while also covering four separate categories of a speed run throughout the entire game in normal difficulty, a speed run throughout the entire game for a 100% completion rate in normal difficulty, a speed run throughout the entire game in hard difficulty and a speed run throughout the entire game for a 100% completion rate in hard difficulty with each leaderboard containing each player’s rank; name (PSN ID); and the amount of time you have taken to complete your speed run with the positioning of each player based upon their overall best time for their speed run throughout the entire game within the appropriate category or categories. While the online leaderboards are pretty good as they are; it could be argued there would have been double the amount of online leaderboards to categorise the first four leaderboards as single player leaderboards with a further four leaderboards covering local co-operative multiplayer, which would have added that much more to the online leaderboards to provide a certain level of definitiveness to them.
There are two difficulty levels including: normal and hard with the major difference between the two being an increased enemy count that are harder to defeat showing a greater consistency of aggression, due to the increased regularity of their attacks that are just as destructive to Juan, while the enemy bosses are just as ruthless in their attacks during gameplay on the hard difficulty level in comparison to the normal difficulty level.
Guacamelee! Super Turbo Championship Edition has an amazing amount of replayability as it provides a humorous adventure across many missions and side quests with drop-in/drop-out local co-operative multiplayer for you to be able to experience the entire story with a friend and competitive online leaderboards that will have you returning to the game for quite some time.
Overall, Guacamelee! Super Turbo Championship Edition reminds me of Ubisoft’s Outland in regards to its main game mechanic of dimension swapping, but with added humour and a significant injection of fun throughout the gameplay as though it is a Mexican Outland on steroids! Guacamelee! Super Turbo Championship Edition comes highly recommended with hours of fun and humorous gameplay across many missions and side quests, beautiful graphics produced via a unique art style approach to cel shading and drop-in/drop-out co-operative multiplayer with brand new gameplay content at a price of £11.49 or an upgrade purchase price of £3.29 if you already own the PS3 and Vita versions and at either price; you should look no further than buying the definitive version of Guacamelee! immediately!
Jason Bonnar
Analysis
- Title: Guacamelee! Super Turbo Championship Edition
- Developer: DrinkBox Studios
- Publisher: DrinkBox Studios
- System: PS4
- Format: PSN Download
- Cross-Buy: No
- Cross-Play: No
- Multiplayer: Yes (2 Players Local Co-Operative/Online Leaderboards)
- Hard Drive Space Required: 801MB