[Review] Caveman Warriors – Nintendo Switch

Developer: Jandusoft S.L
Publisher: Jandusoft
Category: Multiplayer, Platformer, Arcade, Action
Release Date: 12.05.2017

Caveman Warriors

Caveman Warriors is a side-scrolling action platformer, and is intended to e played as a couch co-op title. The game has a right and cheerful art style and an okay, but completely forgettable sound track. You play as a caveman family that has set out to save its prehistoric brethren from invading aliens that have discovered earth…and are abducting cave people left and right.

You can choose between 4 different characters, each of which has their own ability and play style, and can swap between them as you go. Each character has an ability that makes them either useful against the enemies sprinkled throughout the level, or in the ability to navigate a stage’s obstacles. Lilliana has the least health, but has a spear that can be thrown a good distance to attack enemies. This also doubles as the only means of getting over super high cliffs, because you can throw her spear in to a wall, which makes it act as a temporary platform to balance on.

Moe has a little bit more health and his attacks are weaker, but he has greater range. I almost never found myself using Moe, but there are quite a few jumps that are more easily done after using Moe’s ranged attack to clear the way. Brienne has the second most health and strong attacks. Her special is a gigantic whack that sends your opponents flying. She also saw very little use from me. Jack is your powerhouse. He has the most health and has the strongest attacks. He also throws his axe, much like Lilliana throws her spear, but his axe can’t be used as a platform. It is very useful for eliminating multiple enemies in front of you.

The level design is redeemed by its challenge, but falls short of being clever and intriguing. The levels just feel like recycled ideas that anyone growing up in the 8 and 16 bit eras have played through dozens if not hundreds of times before. The controls are well thought out and feel very intuitive. Collision detection is accurate, and the only thing that feels cheap about the game is how the water sports behave sometimes. My biggest tip there is to make sure you watch the pattern of the fountains before you just jump forward.

If I could change one thing about the came, it would be to give everyone a separate health bar so that it would deplete individually instead of as a percentage of the overall health for each player. I keep going back and forth on this game over it’s formulaic design and its simple, but fun and kind of addictive game play.