Coffin Dodgers (Nintendo Switch) Review

Coffin Dodgers first released on PC in 2015 and has made its way over to Nintendo Switch three years later. There are three death-defying modes to whet the appetite; Story, Time Trials, and Open World. In the story mode, the Grim Reaper himself has come looking for his next set of souls and it so happens to be seven elderly townspeople. Scared of their impending and inevitable fate, the old-folk challenge the Grim Reaper to a race of their lives where the winner will ultimately survive whilst the losers will perish. The story mode features 13 races set against four different backdrops; the Village, Town, Farm and Graveyard.

While the backgrounds show differences, the tracks themselves can be hard to distinguish between each stage as most elements are recycled, so there are familiarities between each race. Racers initially come equipped with a melee weapon such as a cane, umbrella, or golf club, which can be swung at opposing drivers to either daze them or wipe them off their kart altogether. Alternatively, weapons can be picked up on the track, as in Mario Kart, with weapons including rockets, oil slicks, and even Uzis.

During the race, XP can be accrued by attacking opponents or by crashing into smaller environmental hazards, such as cones, benches, and barriers. The XP is then converted into in-game currency at the end of each race, which can be spent in the Garage. The Garage allows karts to be customised with additional weapons, colours, or by upgrading the engine, which significantly makes the story mode easier to play.

Coffin Dodgers is by no means difficult to play, but there are irritating features, such as as getting hit by weapons that destroy the kart and waiting to be put back on the track can be timely and, therefore, costly. As the story mode progresses, the characters who lose have their souls claimed by the Grim Reaper but then strangely appear in the very next race. Interestingly, there is an Open World mode, Crazy Grandad, which positions items across the maps and the task is to pick up a number of the items within an allotted timeframe. There is a slight reminiscence of Crazy Taxi as Crazy Grandad has a counting timer and a giant arrow directing what direction the objective is in. Unsurprisingly, this mode grows stale pretty quickly (no pun intended).

Graphically, Coffin Dodgers has a discernible cartoon style to it but nothing that pushes the Nintendo Switch to its limits, rather it could look at home on the N64 or mobile devices. The sound department doesn't stretch the imagination much further, either, with the score on each track largely sounding very similar to the one before it.

With all this said, Coffin Dodgers can actually pose as a credible and fun local multiplayer title, at least for a short period of time, despite the repetitive audio, bland graphics, and unimaginable courses.