[Review] Garlic - Nintendo Switch

Developed By: Sylph 
Published By: Ratalaika Games
Categories: Platformer
Release Date: 07.07.23

Hey. Yeah! Hey You! There’s this massive tower you should go to. I hear, if you get to the top, this “Cyber Goddess” can grant you any wish you want. She’s really a hottie too, you should totally go. Quick warning though, its a real tough one and they really want you dead.

In Garlic, you play as a little Onion boy with some tall aspirations.. He really wants to get to the top of the tower for that Cyber Goddess, call it love if you will. And love does make one do crazy things. Garlic is one of those hardcore platformers. Everything is deadly, the environment, the pits, the bizarre creatures you find. Garlic has a trick up his sleeve though, his dash. Use it as a double jump, an attack, or an act of pure desperation to dodge. As long as this little sprout has energy, he can do this. You can’t spam it however, so try and plan out how you’ll use it. If you’re hit too, you can get tuckered out and won’t be able to use it then either. Reminds me of Vanquish with the ARS Suit. You can slide, slow down time, do cool melee attacks, but it’ll overheat and can happen when you take damage too, so it’s best to be thoughtful on how and when to use it. Two hits and you’re done.

You’ll run into lots of minigames too. Whether its Garlic taking a break by playing some games, one of which is a full color parody of what I like to think is Super Butoden due to Garlic dressing like Piccolo to some games to woo the Cyber Goddess…like not getting caught peeping and cleaning your mess of a room. You can even play a parody of the Battletoads turbo tunnel. Coins you’ll collect in stages are going to be important here.

Do you like monochrome? Well, the colors in Garlic, while a plenty are always going to be in. It reminds me of old Gameboy games. Depending on the part of the variety packed tower you’re in, you’ll get different colors. Much like say…a Virtual Boy game though, the true artistry comes from the fun sprites and stellar animation work. I get flashbacks to Wario games where certain attacks can effect Garlic in new ways. Flames set your head ablaze and you run around. A sawblade might cut off a leg and make you hobble. Garlic can and will make lots of funny faces. It’s truthfully the most endearing part of the game, and if this was a bad game, it’d make up for flaws. Goods thing it’s not a bad game.

It’s hard to properly describe the music, but as much as the stages change style, the music changes too. There’s a sidescrolling shooting stage that has a vocal theme, which to me is just perfect.

Garlic is hard. Frustratingly hard. But there’s infinite continues, so you’ll get there eventually. It may seem impossible, but you can do it! The gameplay loop feels good enough for it actually be worth it to get passed these hurdles. I had to see the ending as much as I thought it was an unbeatable task. I will admit to making some of the faces Garlic does when dying in the arcade games though.

At one point, I thought the game was soft-locked as I couldn’t proceed due to a small bug in stage 10-1 regarding bubbles popping too soon, but said bug fixed itself after restarting the game. This is my biggest flaw with Garlic. I’d definitely recommend playing it. Especially if you love goofy games with some challenge, or vice verse.