Spooky Squid reached out to comment on the difficulty and I have made amendments to the article.
For the past decade Sony has been trying its damnedest to murder the PlayStation Vita and make it look like an accident. However, on July 20th 2021 Sony finally switched off the life support, hoping the portable is unable to breathe on its own, by stopping new games from coming to the store. A number of games came out on that day to pay homage to the console and the one that interested me the most was Russian Subway Dogs a game which doesn’t fit neatly into any little genre box. It’s a little platformy, a little puzzley and very much arcadey and it does all those things well.
You wouldn’t notice that the port was made to a tight deadline when playing as it runs flawlessly on our little platform. It’s a simple two button system of jump or bark with a number of in game elements to manage, while trying and rack up combos and points. It all has a good synergy to it. The levels are well designed, in that they make you feel like you are playing something very different each time, when in fact its just a shake up of the same few elements. Calling it simple may seem like a negative but it is actually a compliment. A simple idea executed well is always better than something bloated and unseemly. Russian Subway Dogs definitely executes it well. The timing of enemy vs item drops throughout each level is very well designed. It forces you to improve your skills and think of creative solutions to different problems. Items combine in interesting ways giving a variety of ways to play.
So over all game is good. Yes. Game is good. But I did want to examine one point more closely.
Now I’m ‘not like the other game journos’. I won’t call Russian Subway Dogs the Dark Souls of canine based jugglers. Not only because it is a ridiculously overused analogy much loved by hacks, but also because I am good at games. I am great at games in fact, and I love a bit of a challenge. Patobox? A sitting duck. Necrosphere? Can burn in hell. Shovel Knight is my all time favourite game, and I have over 200 hours in The Binding of Isaac. What connects all these games aside from the blistering hard difficulty? That they don’t have any option to soften the blow. The game is what it is. The challenge is what makes them what they are. We can argue all day about whether they should have easier options, but the fact is they don’t, and they never will. If you want to experience all these games have to offer then it’s nose to the grindstone time, or as the kids say “git gud boomer no cap”.
Lately in gaming there has been a lot of discussion over accessibility in games. I praise Scourgebringer a blisteringly difficult game for its huge range of difficulty toggles which meant I could slowly build up to play the game the way it was intended. Russian Subway Dogs has a difficulty toggle … sort of. There is normal. Then there is another mode where you need to complete fewer of the very difficult challenges in order to lock more levels. The levels themselves however are just as difficult, but harder challenges such as “finish the level without barking” are now optional. When you choose your difficulty the game warns you that putting it on easy reduces the amount of content in game. This is a little under-explained though. More it makes the more challenging aspects of the game voluntary.
Have you ever played Mickey’s Wild Adventure, Rayman, or Super Princess Peach? These games all have something in common; locking off the last sections of the games behind insanely hard challenge. They also came out in 1994, 1995 and 2005 respectively. Let’s be honest, this approach to difficulty was a little outdated by the time Peach got to it. While I’m glad Russian Subway Dogs doesn’t do this, it fails make reasonable adjustments for accessibility.
Despite this I understand the desire by Spooky Squid to give players something softer after the main criticism of They Bleed Pixels was targeted at the difficulty. However, there were two roads to success here: ignoring the haters and letting players experience the game as intended, or offering scaling options, health drains slower, start levels with extra useful item, super dog who is just the goodest boy at everything. It’s a small criticism, but when the game is this good it’s a shame to not then push it on wards towards greatness. And it could be great … you are so close.
My copy was provided as courtesy.
Disclaimer: In the credits was a ‘thank you’ to someone who used to target female journalists with online harassment. Several years ago I was one of their victims. I have tried where possible to remove bias from this review but it is something you may wish to bear in mind while reading.
Vita Paradisa 