Iron Snout
Nintendo Switch

Developed By : SnoutUp Games
Published By : Ratalaika Games
Category : Action, Arcade, Fighting, Wave Fighter
Release Date : Apr 19, 2019

Everybody remembers being young, and getting tucked into bed with a story right? And once in a while, maybe that story was The Three Little Pigs. The pigs would build houses, the wolf would chase them down and huff, puff, and blow the houses down. Then, do you remember at the end, when one of the little pigs beat the ever living snot out of the Big Bad Wolf and his brethren? …No? That’s not in the book? Well, it’s in Iron Snout on the Nintendo Switch, and it flips this cutesy little fairy tale right on it’s head.

Prepare yourself for standing your ground from an almost endless onslaught of attacking wolves. You’ll find yourself parked in the middle of the screen with enemies coming from both sides. Luckily, you’ve come prepared with fisticuffs! From your standing point, you can punch outwards in both directions, as well as duck to punch and kick low, and even jump to perform air attacks. If you’re lucky, some of your enemies may come into battle with a weapon and you just might get them to lose it in mid-air long enough for you to snatch it up and throw it back at them.

Controls for Iron Snout are a lot of fun, and are spread out over a few locations so you can end up focusing on what feels best for you. Your options are : the left joystick, the D-pad, and the button interface, but no matter which you choose the respective direction will remain the same. Pig can attack to his sides by pressing either respective button, (Y or A if using the interface), ducking down with down or B, and jumping up to perform the side attacks in the air by pressing up and then left/right (X and then side attacks if using interface). I personally found myself favoring using the left joystick since it made for more fluid transitions between attack directions. Also, after attempting every possible thing I could think of, the L and R buttons also act as attacking sideways.

In lieu of difficulty options, Iron Snout offers multiple different modes to play which offer their own respective challenge. There is Classic mode which is just an endless wave of wolfies, and see how far you make it. In this mode, Pig comes with a health bar that can be chipped away as he gets attacked. As far as health replenishing items I didn’t see any, but I still haven’t been able to extend a very long streak of wolf-killing so it could very well be a reward for high number streaks. There’s also a Sudden Death mode where Pig can only take one hit and then instantly dies. Lastly, for single player modes there is “Pig vs 100” and it’s just as it sounds. You’ll have to face down 100 wolfies, but these guys are going to come fast and tough so it won’t be any easy feat.

If you’ve got a friend or family member that wants to jump in on the action with you, there’s a two player mode called Wolfieball available to play as well. Unfortunately, it’s only a small volleyball-type game that requires you and your opponent to keep a ball elevated and whoever lets it fall loses a point. So you won’t be able to fight off the hordes together, but you can at least do something.

Iron Snout has a small sampling of unlockables for you to achieve along the way. There are three different level variants where you can fight : a forest, on a street, and a pirate ship. Each level has it’s own themed dressings for the wolfies, and you’ll need to reach 100 total kills on the previous levels if you want to unlock them all, but you start with Forest available right off the bat. You can also dress Pig up in different costumes, and these are unlocked by meeting specific requirements such as a certain number of kills with weapons, knocking a specific number of heads off, and things like that.

While it might not offer a whole lot in way of gameplay, this one is still a ton of fun, and that’s a statement that honestly caught me by surprise. I enjoy this style of game on a very rare occasion, but nowhere near the level that I enjoyed this one. I find myself wanting to dive in and meet all the requirements to unlock Pig’s outfit variants. It certainly won’t be a game that you sit down and play for hours, but the time you do spend in Iron Snout will be time having a lot of fun. And for this low of a price, why the heck not? So go huff, and puff, and beat some wolfies down!