Toast Time : Smash Up!
Nintendo Switch

Developed By : Force of Habit
Published By : Force of Habit
Category : Arcade, Action, Multiplayer
Release Date : Nov 16, 2018

How often do you stare at your kitchen appliances and think to yourself : “One day, someone’s going to make a video game and you will be the playable character.”? Well…okay let’s be honest, how often do any of us just stare at our kitchen appliances? But if we were to do such a thing, I don’t think it would be very often that we would have the aforementioned thought. Clearly, that was not the case for someone on the team at Force of Habit. It is because of this fact, that we sit here today to discus Toast Time : Smash Up! on the Nintendo Switch.

Toast Time puts you in control of our beloved TERRY, which stands for Toast-Ejecting Recoil and Reload system (the Y is just their because it makes it flow better than TERR). The world is being invade by beasties, and it’s up to TERRY to stop them! The single player campaign spreads out over six worlds that contain nine levels each. Through these levels, TERRY will be in charge of protecting a clock from the invading beasties, for a pre-determined length of time.

How does he protect the clock? Why, by shooting out slices of bread of course! By default, TERRY can shoot out slices of white bread (so plain and boring, blech). However, occasionally crates will appear to fall from the sky. Picking these up will give you short-term usage of a special bread ammo, for instance baguettes which stick in the ground for a few moments, and then shoot off in four projectile pieces to do some extra damage for you. If you can protect the clock for the entire length of time, you’ll have passed the level and will move on to the next one.

One of the most difficult features of the game to get used to, is learning TERRY’s movement. It’s recoil based, so you’ll have to shoot in the opposite direction of where you’ll want to move. Which is all fine and dandy, until you find yourself in a moment where your screen is a bit overwhelmed with enemies, then it can be a little difficult to try and think in two directions. TERRY can also perform a short anchor move, though, which can provide you the few moments you need to readjust and get an advantage back over your enemies.

And, whilst on the topic of difficulty, the game likes to be extremely inconsistent with it between levels. There are plenty of easy levels, and a fair share of tough ones. Yet, it doesn’t present these levels in a steady, difficulty-increasing curve. Rather, it seems like they were just shuffled up so you’ll get a few easy ones, with an extremely tough one sprinkled in out of nowhere.

Toast Time does offer up a multiplayer mode as well. However, it’s couch-play only. You and up to three friends or family members, can smash it up together in a four-toaster free-for-all. All rules are customizable as far as how many rounds you play, what weapons are available, anything and everything to make your play session the best that it can be.

Despite the inconsistent difficulty spikes, I found my time with Toast Time to be extremely enjoyable. TERRY is…interesting to control at first, but it becomes fun really quickly. One of the most entertaining things about this game, for me at least, was the puntastic level names. These include things such as “Scone Henge” and “Toast Busters”. If there’s a completionist hidden inside you, there are plenty of customizable options for your toaster, which rely on you picking up the crates in each level. You can don a magician’s wand, a monacle, top hat, any number of items as you unlock them.

If you are any sort of fan of platformers, you will not want to miss this game at all. Everything is done in an 8-bit style, visually and audio-wise, and with the (albeit random) difficulty, this will take any old school gamer back to those days. So jam on over to eShop and add this slice of bread to your digital library.