AvoCuddle
Nintendo Switch

Developed By : Fistik Tech
Published By : Ultimate Games
Category : Platformer, Adventure
Release Date : Mar 02, 2020

True love can be found just about anywhere, and by anybody. Could be in a dark corner of a seedy bar, over a romantic dinner, or through an app. But I’m sure nobody ever thought they’d encounter a situation involving avocados deeply in love. Whether you wanted it or not, though, AvoCuddle on the Nintendo Switch brings you that very scenario.

We find ourselves on the peaceful garden planet of AvoPlanet, and our two love veggies, AvoRa and AvoLn are making their way to enjoy the view of a beautiful waterfall. When they get there, AvoRa stomps away angry leaving AvoLn upset at the waterfall. Wandering off, he comes across an orb of light that guides him to collecting eight roses in order to make AvoLn happy.

Unfortunately, before he can return them to her, she is kidnapped by an alien and whisked away. The orb of light then explains that the “first avocados who arrived on this planet” left their spaceship buried somewhere, and it is now up to you to find it so can fly off and save her.

AvoCuddle is a very basic side-scrolling platformer. AvoRa can jump, sprint, swim and dash, as well as perform wall-jumps and even use a jetpack. He can also handle himself a little bit in combat, which is controlled twin-stick style, aiming with the right joystick and pulling the trigger. To defend yourself in the game, you’ll come across a pretty decent collection of weapons, from short-range handguns, long-range rifles, and even a homing missile launcher.

Once you find your way to the ship on AvoPlanet, you’ll be off to visit a handful of other planets, chasing down the alien who stole your true love. Each of these will present it’s own set of challenges that you’ll need to deal with, and unique enemies to get in your way. But between your multiple weapons and the ability to jump on everything’s back like the good old Goomba-squashing days, you’ll have more than what you need to take them out.

In addition to your weapons, there’s plenty of items all around to help you out. You’ll have a healthbar to maintain which can be replenished in a few ways. Health packs that you can pick, up and campfires you can sit near are two ways you can do this. Enemies you kill can have a chance of dropping these too, but they’ll also drop Limon Currency. This is a money you can pick up and accrue and spend at the Limon shop where you can buy various items and upgrades for your weapons.

While a lot of times whacky game ideas can carry a title far, AvoCuddle and it’s whackiness didn’t help sell the game on me. The graphics were nice, a fun cartoony vibe that was really well animated and offered lots of different sceneries and enemies. The gameplay itself though didn’t feel as great as it could have. The platforming and general movements were really slow, stiff and sluggish. A lot of times, the jumps you need to make felt like they were calculated exactly and you needed to jump at the exact right moment, from the exact right place.

It’s nice when a game has a lot for you to do, but if it can’t make you want to do all those things, then what’s the point? For me, I wanted to turn this game off more than I wanted to dive into it and save AvoLn.