A Robot Named Fight! (Nintendo Switch) Review

The planet of the robots, or something, has gotten a bad case of an Independence Day-like invasion, from a moon-sized Lovecraftian meatball that spits flesh-spawn. The only one who can stop it? A robot named… err, 'Fight!' if that's really its name. Well, even if the name isn't correct, its designer was certainly a Super Metroid fan, as this - initially - piece of junk bears a striking resemblance to the way Samus Aran moves and controls.

Who knows how much time this title's sole programmer spent in tweaking this metal hero to make it feel so similar to the famous bounty hunter, but he sure did do a great job. As is the case with many heavily tribute-esque indie games, however, this focus on Super Metroid sort of undermines its own character. Does it look bad? Not really. The levels are vibrantly coloured and very detailed, and the music is catchy, but nothing really stands out as much as it could.

Note that this also plays like Nintendo's legendary piece of perfection. "Fight!" runs around, shoots little mobs, gathers power-ups that makes it possible to open certain doors, reach higher places, or last longer in a boss battle, and so on, and so forth. The catch? Once death comes (and it will come), the world resets, your tools are removed, and it's back to the shooting and power-up gathering business. Fun? Yes, but it's a concept that has a couple of issues…

The first is the typical "curse" of rogue-likes: the levels change, but you become familiar with the various patterns way too soon, and thus everything seems kind of same-y. Sure, it's possible to use a 'Seed' password and keep the same level structure, but that destroys the whole point of playing this. Moreover, be ready to feel a little bit of aggravation every time you lose, as this isn't a rogue-lite where you can make the next play-through a little easier for yourself.

There's an upgrade system of sorts, where reaching certain goals unlocks a new kind of equipment, making it possible for the player to find and use it upon returning to the fray, but that doesn't really change things as much as would be expected, not to mention that the process of starting all over again and searching around for the tools of the flesh-killing trade remains a little too boring for its own sake.

Saying that, though, this is still an immensely enjoyable piece of software, and despite the annoyance deaths it brings forth, it's hard to put the Switch aside, even after getting your behind mortally kicked. Sadly, it's also hard to avoid the rest of the flaws that come along with all the fun. One of those is that, while this is technically flawless, Metroid's gameplay doesn't exactly go hand-in-hand with rogue-likes as gracefully as might have been hoped.

The reason why this blend is tasteful, but not as much as it should be, is the simple fact that Super Metroid is basically a, mainly slow, exploration adventure with some shooting thrown in, whereas A Robot Named Fight! leans a lot towards the shooter side of the scale. Since most of the enemies are insignificant monsters that just walk/fly around, however, and the robot itself isn't exactly very fast, at least in the beginning, the pleasure tends to take a dip every now and then.

Let it be said once more, though. Despite all this nagging, this remains a very fun metroidvania, as long as nobody minds the "baggage" of the rogue-like sub-genre. It has one more problem, however, and it's possibly its biggest: a lack of variety. The amount of upgrades and, generally, things that can be done while exploring around, would be great for a Metroid title, but for a rogue-like it just isn't enough to make subsequent playthroughs more enjoyable than the previous ones …at least you can split the annoyance in two, though, and play it co-operatively, with the second player actually acting as a flying orb(!?).