Picture this: You are a Caveman minding your own business, chilling around a fire while your children are outside playing, then out of nowhere an alien comes and abducts your children. You are a simple prehistoric man, you hunt dinosaurs for survival of your species and family and some strange things kidnap your children. Well these 4 brave warriors are taking a stand and will get them back.. That is basically the gist of it.
Side Scrolling platformers are the bread and butter of the video game universe, without them we wouldn’t be where we are now. Every game developer has a challenge to create something unique and different from the rest, and Caveman Warriors succeeds in being different from the rest of platforming adventure games.
When you start the game, you choose your Caveman( or woman) from the 4 available. You pick the one you like the most and your adventure begins right?…Nope you are wrong, well your adventure begins but one of Caveman Warriors mechanics is that the character you chose its not necessarily the one that you can keep throughout the entire game. This is because each one has a different set of skills and abilities that differ from each other. Jack The Smasher uses an ax with his skill being throwing the ax in a arc. This is good for hitting enemies in the air or in hard to reach places and his ability is a flaming charge that makes him invincible to hits for a while. Liliana The Last Rider uses a lance with a snake on the tip (cave women were snake enchanters I guess), hers skill is to throw the lance in a straight line. This is good for using as a platform for reaching places that you cant with your super jump and her ability is a powerful 2 hit combo. Moe The Shaman uses a drum that allows you to kick butt at the beat of ancient music. His skill is to throw one of his stick as a projectile which is good to get faraway enemies. His ability is to throw a monkey that starts singing within a sphere and is really useful because the enemies start dancing to the beat and you can get close to bonk them on the head. Lastly, Brienne The Beauty uses…a big dinosaur leg( maybe she was in the middle of lunch when aliens invaded). Her skill is a full force hit that sends enemies flying, and her ability is using her “weapon” as a shield to protect her from harm. Why did I take the time to explain different skills and abilities? Because thanks to the character swap mechanic in Caveman Warriors, you are swapping real time between all 4 to get through each one of the stages.
Now if you have the opportunity to play with other players, the 4 player mode is the way to go since each of you will support each other. But if you don’t have anyone to play with, the single player mode with swapping between the 4 characters will get you there. The characters and each of the stages are well detailed, and I also love the idle animations of each of the warriors since it gives them real personality ( love Brienne’s animation her pet t-rex feeds on her weapon). I can see that the developers got inspiration from classics like Metal Slug ( love the airplane level btw), and to be honest I really like the knock back mechanic. When you get hit you get knocked back( like Ghost and Goblins) so you must carefully time your jumps and attacks. The enemy AI is designed in a way that they wont make things easy for you as some hit and run, while others jump and attack and and follow your movements i.e. if you jump they also jump and attack. So these enemies aren’t just simple obstacles on your way but must be carefully considered.
Bottom line, Caveman Warriors is a fun addition to the Nintendo Switch Library with a interesting cast of characters and fun multiplayer action. It is a game geared towards multiplayer but it can be enjoyed in single player as well, with good difficulty and interesting puzzles. I recommend it to fans of the genre, and to gamers that want a challenging game on their Switch.
Disclaimer: A review key was provided