[Review] Postal Redux - Nintendo Switch

Developed By: Running With Scissors
Published By: MD Games Publishing
Categories: Twinstick Shooter
Release Date: 10.16.20

You ever know a kid that’s always joking about violence, death, inflicting it on others, or just really off-color things? The super edgy one. Yeah, that’s Postal. It says a lot of about culture and society that a game like Postal could release with an M Rating in 1997, but the game Hatred, released almost two decades after is struck with an AO Rating and struggled to find a release, despite being practically the same game. With Postal Redux, we have a remake of the first game in the series, a new engine, the first on a console, and with all of the expansions, plus more.

Postal, or rather Postal Redux is a classic twin stick shooter, it’s not fast or cartoony. It’s more of the grounded type of twin stick shooter, no big frills or anything. That isn’t to say the game isn’t tongue in cheek or humorous though. That said, most of the humor is on the level of 9/11 jokes. Each level is a different part of the town you’re currently going postal in, from your home, to a parade, to the trailer park, to even a carnival. Your goal is to take out at least 90% of the hostals in the leve. Cops, Military, anyone who really is just trying to hurt you. There are just random, unarmed civilians, which you can shoot, but you’re not expect to, and I found it much more challenging, and funny to completely avoid them. You start with just a sub machinegun, slowly getting new weapons along the way. A Shotgun, a Magnum, not included in the original, grenades and moltov cocktails, and even a rocket launcher, among others. Every gun has a situation, but I found myself using the shotgun most often, it’s just strong enough to take out most hostiles with little worry. If you don’t quite kill someone and they’re on the ground, crawling, begging for help…or death, you can and might have to finish them off. Each gun has it’s own execution animation, something also added in Redux. If you just can’t take it anymore, there’s also a suicide action, which also has it’s own animations per weapon.

This is quite a difficult game. Even on Normal difficulty, I had to retry most of the stages quite a handful of times. Hostiles gang up on you, and you can go from lots of HP, to practically none rather fast. I’ve found it’s better to pick people off one by one and fight from afar, but that’s not an option at times. There’s plenty of health and ammo pickups throughout the stages, even brand new weapons, much like any good classic shooter.

Aesthetically, looks, sounds, it’s all meant to give off a feeling on discomfort, or to unnerve. Gritty, almost seems dirty at times. I could probably chock this up to the game’s age giving it that look, but the loading screens between stages have edgy journal entries and disturbing visuals. Strange high pitched sounds, the screams of people, and officers currently shooting at you, saying “Don’t make me shoot you” fill your ears. None of it is really pleasant outside of the odd ironic dialogue or the “He’s going postal” quote. The game is all around really mean spirited, which isn’t my cup of tea.

Outside of just doing the main campaign, you do have a handful of extras. A survival mode, which has it’s own ending. Unlockable characters, including the main character from Hatred. There’s a nice little selection of filters you can use too, from console generations, a cyberpunk look, a psychedelic look, and even a filter based on Hatred…someone at Running with Scissors must really like that game.

Postal Redux really quite shows it’s age. While it’s an enjoyable enough game, none of the gameplay balances really do much to make it feel modern, and that’s ok. If I wanted to play a modern game, I would. I can’t really jive with how the game is thematically though, but that’s all personal opinion.