Gigabash Switch Review
The first time watching Pacific Rim, I was blown away by the sheer scale of destruction from its several action set pieces. Robots beating up Kaijus in urban environments, no holds barred action, and bonus points for the Aussie representation with Eureka Striker! Yes, I realise Pacific Rim isn’t the first Kaiju movie in history, but it was the first one I ever saw and GigaBash is a game that seemingly promises to bring that sort of action and shrink it down to the palm of your hands… but can it reach the same heights?
Gigabash is a fighting game that pitches you against other monsters in many varied arenas like experimental power plants, ports, harbours, and cities. You can pick from a varied menagerie of Kaiju and super-sized heroes to duke it out in the field of battle. There’s a short single-player mode focusing on some of the characters, but the real package comes in the fast and frantic multiplayer modes. These modes range from beating each other senseless to a Windjammers-inspired mode which makes for a great night of laughs (and frustrations when everyone teamed up on me!)
The game is easy to pick up with a simple style of controls (think Smash Bros, but simpler) that makes it a great game to play with gamers of all skill levels. Sometimes this can be a downside as button mashing is a viable strategy and it’s hard to recover from an onslaught of quick attacks. You can go Ultra by racking up enough energy which doubles your size, allowing you to dominate the competition, and only other Ultra enemies can dwindle your health. It adds a bit of strategy to fights, knowing when to use your ultra to dominate early or save it to defend from another player. We had many laughs when someone went ultra, running away as fast as we could! Silly moments like this make Gigabash a blast with friends, and we had a solid multiplayer playtest of about 3 hours without losing interest.
The game runs smoothly with all the action happening on screen and the attacks and animations look great and are entertaining. While the environments are fun to battle it out in, some environments can sometimes seem low-detailed, almost PS2-like in nature. That being said there are a lot of dynamic factors when battling such as a volcano erupting and slowly engulfing the map, or weather changes which help turn the tide of battle when you’re in the thick of it. The characters had great detail and all play and feel different which is great, I just wish there was more selection. There was a Godzilla DLC available on launch, but it was a bit steep in price considering the price of the game itself which is actually quite reasonable. While it might be light on characters, there are a lot of fun levels to unlock via progression, as well as music and artwork which was a nice touch.
The one main problem with Gigabash is that there’s just not really enough of it. The lack of characters, with half locked behind a Godzilla paywall stings worse than an energy ball to the face, and I’m unsure why the campaign only covers a few characters instead of all. It’s not really a deal breaker as Gigabash is a great party game, but for those solo players, it might not be able to go the distance with your attention (even with bots on multiplayer modes.)
Gigabash for Nintendo Switch is a great game at a reasonable price point. It’s fun, frantic, and has silly moments that make you laugh out loud. Its single-player options may run out of steam, but with many levels to unlock and varied game modes, party play is a hit. There are certainly some shortcomings for a game featuring tall monsters, but these can be overcome by grabbing 4 controllers, and hitting the town (quite literally) with some friends.
So What’s it Like?
Gibabash for Switch is a cross between Pacific Rim, and Super Smash.
