Antonblast Review – Niche Gamer

Inspired by the Crash Bandicoot and Wario Land franchises, Antonblast is a 2D platformer in which players fight against the devil to recover their stolen booze.

Antonblast places a high emphasis on going fast and breaking things, which is usually accompanied by very loud noises and screaming. The game is a chaotic experience from beginning to end, and is bound to engage players and overstimulate them into next week.

So, how closely does the game match its inspirations? Is it accessible for people who aren’t used to speedrunning? How similar is it to Pizza Tower? Find out the answer to these questions and more in our full review for Antonblast.

Antonblast
Developer: Summitsphere
Publisher: Summitsphere
Platforms: Nintendo Switch and Microsoft Windows (Reviewed)
Release Date: December 3, 2024
Players: 1
Price: $19.99

Antonblast‘s protagonist, Dynamite Anton, is a short man with incredibly red skin who doesn’t seem to care about much other than drinking alongside his buddy Annie. Satan, who is envious of Anton’s red skin, orders his minions to steal his alcohol so he can lure him into a confrontation and steal his crimson pigmentation.

Satan, who looks a lot like a Cow and Chicken character, is present throughout the entire game and provides small intermissions before each stage begins, also participating in a few cutscenes before the final showdown. Something surprising is that Antonblast is fully voice acted, which adds a lot to its cartoonish charm.

The game’s plot doesn’t take itself seriously at all, but there’s a good amount of character interactions and short cutscenes to spice up the experience. Some cutscenes even have different dialogue depending on whether the player went into the stage as Anton or Annie, which is pretty fun.

Antonblast takes the easy-to-learn-but-hard-to-master approach with its gameplay, featuring very simple controls and easy-to-understand level design. The player can clutch, which serves as a forward dash as well as an attack, jump, slide, and scream, which doesn’t really do anything but is nice to have.

The main gameplay mechanic centers around clutching, which is used to move through levels at breakneck speed by hitting things in your way. By timing your button presses properly, you can keep a clutch combo going, and clutching right as you hit an enemy or object helps preserve your momentum by giving you a boost.

Pretty much 80% of Antonblast‘s gameplay is moving forward while breaking things, and it never really gets old. The other 20% is split between either boss fights or actual platforming, which requires players to use a few other moves like the hammer slam and slide jump.

The game’s levels are incredibly tight and well-designed, even featuring some unique design choices, like one of them being modeled after liminal spaces. The game has a great sense of humor and references internet culture in ways that aren’t obnoxious, with one of the deeper cuts being that you kill a boss by sending them to Brazil, landing a finishing move in the middle of a soccer stadium.

Antonblast in general seems a little obsessed with Brazil, placing the country’s flag as one of the random images that display on the hub area’s televisions, as well as recreating Rio de Janeiro in a hidden area, Christ the Redeemer statue included.

This goes beyond being a joke with the game not only featuring Brazilian Portuguese localization but also regional pricing, which is very thoughtful on the developer’s part. This isn’t something I’d usually highlight, but Brazil is the only country that Antonblast seems to mention, so it feels relevant. Why does the game reference the country so much? No idea.

There’s good variety to the way levels are played, as some of them focus on more conventional platforming, while others place an emphasis on going as fast as possible. Each level also has its own gimmick in a Wario Land fashion, featuring different transformations that alter your movement temporarily.

These level gimmicks don’t feel disruptive to the flow of gameplay and generally make for some fun sections. They aren’t all made the same, with the pinball one being a little too annoying to control, but for the most part they make up creative set pieces that feature unique level design to make them stand out.

Reaching the end of a level triggers a timed happy hour section, which has you making your way backwards to the place where you started the level. The timers for these sections are pretty forgiving for the most part and are there simply to add to the chaos that Antonblast thrives in.

Every stage has a couple of collectibles that are usually hidden behind tricky platforming or breakable walls. Even if you do notice some of these hidden entrances, there’s a good chance you’ll be going so fast that you’ll either lock yourself out of entering by progressing a little too far from it or by killing an important enemy.

A good chunk of the secrets in the game require you to jump off of an enemy to reach them, which is a problem because they only respawn if you die. The player is punished for dying by losing a lot of their poker chips, which are collected throughout the level, so it isn’t in your best interest to keep dying to get it right, at least not before spending your money anyway.

The shop found in the hub area lets you cash in your chips to purchase different color schemes, which there are a staggering 91 of in total, possibly 182 if you consider they are available for both Anton and Annie. The player can also purchase both permanent and temporary upgrades to move through levels easier, which incentivizes exploring each stage for the more valuable hidden chips.

The game’s boss fights are all varied enough and feature some really nice spritework, but don’t necessarily follow the same rhythm as the game’s regular levels, instead featuring a lot of waiting for your turn to do something. The game also throws in a rough difficulty spike with the second boss, which is harder than some of the fights that come later.

Some fights are way too simple and go by really fast, while others feel like they go on forever and try to enforce gameplay that doesn’t match the rest of the levels. Having to adapt how you play the game for each encounter feels a little disruptive to the experience, giving it a stop-and-go feel.

The last boss especially feels like a marathon thanks to it having so many phases, a few of which are plagued by inconsistent tracking and moves that are hard to read. The fight is really creative and serves as a massive escalation for the finale if you look at it as a whole, but it does have its rough spots.

Antonblast initially drew a lot of attention thanks to its similarities to Pizza Tower, something that both game’s developers have acknowledged multiple times, but Antonblast follows the Wario Land formula in a much looser way than Pizza Tower does. The movement is especially not as contextual as it is in Pizza Tower, making it much easier to get into.

The game shows a lot of its Crash Bandicoot inspirations through its time trial levels, where you break boxes to stop the timer from moving. Some require you to complete the level as fast as possible while breaking boxes whenever you can, while others pretty much require you to keep the timer frozen throughout the entire level, which is pretty fun.

The game clocks in at around 8-10 hours, and the time trials and combo challenges add a good bit of replayability to the game’s levels. You can easily triple your playtime attempting to master the game’s movement to run through stages in one single combo or killing bosses without getting hit.

Overall, Antonblast