A few months ago I reviewed 99Vidas: The Game for Steam. Now after playing it on PS4 I have some new thoughts that must be added.
In my Steam review, I noted the following.
I cannot explain it, but 99Vidas – The Game has that charm that so few indie games have. It doesn’t try to recreate the classic games, but rather it takes the best ideas and does something new with them. You have four choices of characters and can play solo or in co-op. All the characters play differently and have their own unique elements and abilities. I had a lot of fun playing through the game and seeing what the various characters can do. There are references to classic series like Final Fight, Streets of Rage and Double Dragon and stages designed to play homage to those games. The game makes great use of shops by having them be end of stage events. This works well with a linear sider scrolling game and feels natural.
All of this is still true, and in fact I can appreciate it even more on PS4. Compared to other games on the system, it just sticks out far better. In fact, I would say its the lack of a good old school beat em up that is good right away, that is very attractive about the game. The visuals pop out far better, and the music, already amazing on steam, still sounds awesome. It feels like moving to a console made the game better.
Speaking of the complaints I had….
If I had any complaints, it is that the multiplayer can be a little chaotic at times, and the enemies have that classic beat em up annoyance, where they can attack through your attacks and trap you for multiple hits. It can be extremely annoying but it isn’t impossible to deal with.
On PS4, the game just feels smoother, like things have been refined and perfected. The multiplayer works better and the combat lacks the quirks it had on Steam. Maybe it was the PS4 control scheme, but it just felt better. There are other issues, such as occasional lag from out of nowhere, which is a new problem for this version, but it otherwise is not a major concern as it does not happen too often.
All in all, I love this game, and this port is great. 99Vidas: The Game on PS4 gets a recommendation from me!