Kids hate vegetables, right? I remember when I was little, and I could eat everything on my plate, except for vegetables ( now, I eat…most of them). I also remember that it was a struggle for my mom to make me eat them (as for many mother around the world), but even if they are good for your health, the vegetables are not that popular. Aliens are popular, though, since there are many people who think that we are not alone. This is evidenced by the many movies and series. So far, humankind is always in search for an answer to the question: Are we the only ones in the universe? But what would happen if we combine vegetables’ lack of popularity with aliens and roguelite elements? We get The Walking Vegetables: Radical Edition!
The Story of TWVRE is straight forward:
It was a normal night until strange incidents started to occur. The chief of police is at wits end and makes a bold statement, “I need to call him, he’s the only one that can solve this.”
Your character is enjoying a cup of coffee when he receives a call. He’s told to go to the police station and like a badass 80’s movie, hard guy throws away the phone. This marks the beginning of a tutorial, and when done at the police station, your mission is to kill all mutated veggies. This game´s premise makes me remember The Attack of the Killer Tomatoes (one of my favorite old movies, didn’t like the cartoon that much, though) but with added vegetables and fruits. The game is not going to win any awards for its writing, but it is mindless fun. That is what really matters.
As you might have guessed, TWVRE is a twin stick shooter. You move through each map with the Left Stick, and aim with the Right, shooting with either holding down or pressing the ZR button. With the R button, you do a melee attack (the speed depends on the sub-weapon equipped at the time). With L, you can bring out the map, and ZL brings a menu (all of this slowing down time) to cycle between the available weapons. You can carry two at a time and can swap them with the Y button.
At the start of every run, your weapons arsenal is a little on the low side. You carry a handgun with infinite bullets, a nightstick for melee attacks and…a cup of coffee ( an attack item with usage cool down can be used by pressing the Right Stick Button). As you defeat enemies in each map, you gain more weapons (more than you can imagine) that range from a sniper rifle, to a rocket launcher. There’s tons of ways to shoot the vegetables to oblivion, but the weapons you can use are not limited only to the main weapons. There are a lot of melee weapons as well like a baseball bat, an ax, even ninja stars (my favorite, by the way)! If that is not enough, the attack items are varied as well. Besides the cup of coffee (that slows down veggies for easier kills), there are hand grenades and a sponge (still don’t know what that is for, but it damages), so basically you are armed to the teeth.
On the map itself, you must move following the pink arrows. These take you to different screens in which you must kill every veggie on sight,. After clearing all the waves in that area, no more veggies appear and the arrow changes from pink to blue, meaning it’s safe to move around. After killing each veggie, they drop coins. These are usable in the shop were you can purchase weapons, refill your hearts, or even purchase ammo boxes or weapon boxes (random weapons). Also, once the area is rid of vegetables, you can destroy objects like trash cans, gas pumps, benches, and almost everything.
Why, you ask? Because in the aforementioned, you can find ammo, hearts but most importantly keys. Keys are the most valuable asset in the game since besides helping you open chests, they also open doors to enter buildings (full of veggies), once inside the building you clear all waves and are awarded a chest containing rare weapons and ammo. Sometimes when you destroy things like furniture inside the buildings, you can find more keys (to get to the shop you need at least one key to unlock the door). Why so many locked doors? Well, there are crazy veggies out there ,and it was the most the citizens could do.
When you clear most or all areas in each map, you fight against a mini boss. After defeating him, the door to the boss appears. Boss characters are souped-up vegetables like a giant broccoli or a vomiting coconut. The boss battles are fun and hectic. Sometimes they even call more veggies to make it harder but using all tools at your disposal will make short work of them.
Graphically, the game is in all its pixel glory. I especially love the VHS effect (it can be turned off if you don’t like it). Each veggie has different attack patterns and animations. Lemons walk toward you and vomit acidic juice. Celery runs screaming like a madman ( so fun). Oranges are big but when you shoot them, they become small slices that run towards their (or your) doom. Each vegetable and fruit is a challenge, and I really like how varied they are.
The music is awesome. It has that 80’s vibe with even some saxophone and cool electronic beats. I like that when you have one heart left, the music plays faster, giving a sense of urgency.
The only thing that is a little off-putting is that if you die, you have to start from the very beginning (roguelite). Also, you cannot save mid campaign, and while you can finish it in one go, starting again will upset some. But on the bright side, there are also skills to get that make each run easier like having an extra heart. However, unlocking them is part of the fun.
Bottom Line – The Walking Vegetables: Radical Edition is radical indeed. Who knew that shooting vegetables could be so fun? With tons of weapons to find, each run will have you coming back for more. If only eating vegetables was as fun as this twin stick shooter, kids would love them.
A Review code was provided for this review.