Retro gamers have been spoilt recently with a slew of new titles for NES, SNES, Game Boy, Dreamcast and just about every other old console going. A new one crashing the party is Lethal Wedding, a top-down shooter being developed in-house by retro specialist publishers Mega Cat Studios. This shotgun wedding is heading for a crowdfunding campaign, due to be launched on Kickstarter soon. In the meantime, Retro News checks out the current build and asks if retro fans should be saying “I do”.
Lethal Wedding gives players the choice to control Joanna the bride or Shelly the mother-in-law. Both are fierce and angry following the kidnapping of the groom the day before the wedding. They must rescue the groom from a drug ring of criminal clowns hellbent on ruining the big day. The story is as silly as it gets but lays the foundations for a whacky game that doesn’t take its vows seriously. The whole game is a tongue-in-cheek, action-filled blast-a-thon with comedy at every turn.
The game plays out like most other titles in this much-beloved genre, reaching the end of each of the 30+ levels and taking out as many of the killer clowns as possible. Along the way, players will find additional health in the form of a wedding cake, bonus points in the form of presents, and the all-important weapon upgrades in the form of Gun of Roses, Banana SMG and various other ridiculous items. The combat has an interesting mechanic that requires a reload once the clip is emptied and this adds strategy to taking down enemies. Unloading too quickly means our bride-to-be or mother-in-law are sitting ducks for the clowns.
There is also a great roll mechanic that also adds to the strategy. Every type of enemy has a different attack pattern and it takes practice to avoid the onslaught while timing accurate shots back at them. This gives depth to Lethal Wedding as some enemies require patience and lots of rolling around to defeat while others just need a good double blast when running through. At times there are two or three enemy types, all moving and attacking in different ways, and the action becomes fun but hectic.
Controlling the heroines in Lethal Wedding is slick with responsive movements in all eight directions. Similarly, shooting is responsive and has a punch that helps give a feel for the timing needed to get through each battle section. Playing this build, there were a few moments when collision detection felt a little off, but nothing that was a concern to the overall game which felt solid throughout. These instances seemed to become less frequent once timing the rolls and avoiding attacks were mastered.
At the end of every stage, players are presented with their overall score which is broken down into several elements. Then they move onto the upgrade screen that uses points obtained to build speed, give quicker loading, take less damage and many other benefits. Some need to be unlocked by completing the levels tasks laid out in the ‘vow system’ which gives longevity and replayability to an otherwise straight-forward blast fest. These missions are tough to complete as well, it will take lots of practice and many playthroughs to nail them and veterans of the genre will relish finishing them all to unlock all the upgrades on offer.
The final bits of gameplay to mention in Lethal Wedding are the very fun Bridezilla and Moster-in-Law power-ups that appear occasionally and give over-the-top superpowers to the characters. These sections are just fun as you plough through the clowns and cause havoc. There is also a two-player co-op mode although this wasn’t tested for this preview. Overall the gameplay feels solid with lots to do and even more to go back and improve on with each run.
Lastly, Lethal Wedding looks like a blushing bride-to-be. The colours, animation, large sprites and interesting level design help this stand out from the crowd of other indie retro titles. The bosses are large on screen and there is a great variety in the look, style and movements of the enemies. The weapons all have different effects and there are quite a few cool set-piece areas throughout the levels. This is shaping up to be one heck of a knees-up party and we’ll let you know as soon as the crowdfunding campaign goes live.
