Platform: Switch
Publisher: The Dangerous Kitchen
Developer: The Dangerous Kitchen
Genre: Action, Fighting, Platform, Multiplayer
Players: 4
Release Date: July 13, 2017
De Mambo is a one button action game developed and published by The Dangerous Kitchen.
This game reminds me of what it was like when playing back in the Atari era with simple looking visuals, however, it performs better than its predecessors. De Mambo offers three different game modes which you can play, featuring a multiplayer, solo and survival option.
With De Mambo providing a variety of different game modes to choose from, Its multiplayer mode is where this game really shines. While multiplayer only requiring a minimum of 2 players, it’s a bunch of fun, especially when playing with friends.
Knock ‘em Till They Drop
The objective of this game is to push your opponents off the screen, very similar to Super Smash Bros., minus the damage count, countdown, and items. The multiplayer mode has up to 25 stages with each being different and having moving parts such as platforms, pipes, water, etc.
Stages and other parts of the game have breakable blocks that can easily be destroyed within a couple hits, making your battle to the death more intense. While playing at first, you are given the option of only selecting three stages but the more your play and dive into the game, the more stages are unlocked.
The character design itself is simple in the form of a small pixelated ball. Even though it’s a one button action game, you can do three attack styles with it. You can charge and shoot projectiles in compass directions, (be careful when charging too long, as it will exhaust your character and leave it helpless for a few seconds.) or use a spin attack and create spikes from your character’s circular body.
Your character can also jump three times from the ground or two times in mid-air. The character movement in this game is quite difficult to master as it doesn’t move as smooth as I thought it would for a spherical character, instead it’s loose and fast-paced when trying to jump and land.
Fighting it Solo
In the solo mode, you can play up to 70 stages although not all at once. As you progress in the game, more stages will be unlocked. Each stage is quite different from one another while still sharing similar and repetitive goals such as surviving enemy attacks and exiting the stage through mazes. All these challenges must be completed within a specified time and on a limit of lives. Before you begin, you can choose your character color, and which difficulty you’d like to take on.
It’ll take a couple tries to get used to the controls and the difficulty in levels, however, it’s always satisfying when completing them. Comparing it to other fighting games, this is probably one of the best solo campaigns I’ve ever played to-date.
I’m a Survivor!
Survival mode can be played up to four players. After picking your character colors, you are on a breakable row of blocks. Like the title of the mode, you are to survive against alien attacks that come down from the sky, shooting at you and the platform you are standing on. Very similar to the Space Invaders game however you can fall off your platform. Enemies will not only shoot at you in various ways but also take away platform blocks and try to knock you off with it. While the survival mode has its own unique challenges, it was the only mode I played for a short period of time due to its simplicity.
The survival mode in De Mambo can be crazy fun especially when playing with multiple people for it can become very competitive.
Playing the game in handheld mode works pretty well but can be difficult when playing in multiplayer due to the Switch’s small screen. The battery life when only playing De Mambo lasted about 3 hrs and 45 mins with the highest screen brightness settings.
Final Thoughts
De Mambo offers chaos and fun gameplay by challenging your skills with its solo and multiplayer mode, especially when playing against friends, however, it may not offer enough content to keep you occupied for hours or an online multiplayer mode, (which is a missed opportunity) but overall the game is still great especially for $12!
De Mambo is now available for download on eShop for Nintendo Switch.
