Review: Axe Cop (The Game)

Based on the absurdly entertaining 2009 Dark Horse comic of the same name that later became a decent but short-lived animated series in 2013 that lasted only two seasons. Created by Malachai (age 5) and Ethan (age 29) Nicolle. Axe Cop covers the franchise’s ten-year comic book history, where the titular hero and his team of colorful characters must go on epic adventures to rid the world of all bad guys once and for all!

Developed and published by “Red Triangle Games”, the gameplay itself is modeled after the style of 8-bit retro-style JRPG’s, as the battles are turn-based, with the villains taking up a large portion of the screen which in terms of gameplay-structure comes across as an homage to the NES game Dragon Warrior while accompanied by a decent and catchy chiptune soundtrack. “Special moves” take the place of magic spells. One of the more convenient aspects of the battle system comes in the form of an MP-meter and if you grew up playing certain JRPG’s as I have, it should be easy to jump into. Special moves take MP to use and the difficulty of the levels means that these are meant to be used sometimes frequently. Similar to the “Limit Break” system from classic Final Fantasy games, MP can, fortunately, be recharged simply through the use of your regular attacks, or taking a moment to select charge, which sacrifices a few of your turns in favor of a larger replenishment of a specific dwindling resource. So, battles are a matter of buffs and debuffs, strategically sacrificing hit points to potentially put a dangerous foe to rest. those hit points eventually do become beneficial, as they’re too few healing spells to go around and no “rest” system to fill up at save points. This, coupled with the meager amount of healing that sodas (this game’s version of healing potions) do means that every decision matters. Axe Cop is not the most challenging JRPG to come along, but it does require the player actually think about, item management, what they are going to do, what singular & specific stats are worth improving, etc.

While all of this sounds fine & dandy on paper, the game itself is not without flaws that keep me from giving this a higher rating. As each of the heroes has a unique & particular skill that is essentially needed in the overworld to solve a puzzle or clear a path. It took me a while to get used to the gameplay mechanics, but it was much later that I discovered a “quick swap” feature that would have saved me all that tediousness. It’s great that they thought of this, but it should have been mentioned in a tutorial or something. Similarly, when trying to do a move near a context-sensitive object, the game stops and asks if the player wants to sometimes switch between characters each time. It’s not a major complaint but left me wondering what else the player would have wanted and why even bother to ask the question in the first place? The second biggest gripe I have the most would also have to be the lack of a map system to help you properly navigate. The levels progressively expand and often require backtracking. While room designs are unique, they typically suffer due to a lack of variety when it comes to wall and floor scenery. Because of this, there are times where the player has to wander around to figure out the next stop on the path to kill the baddies and further progress in the game. But if there’s was a map system in place, it was never found during my playthrough, even after active searching, which led to periods of frustration and repeatedly fighting the same monotonous yet humorously-designed enemies, but the complete lack of a navigation system does hamper things a bit.

As a whole, despite these major flaws which I hope they’ll someday fix in a future update/patch, I still had fun with the Axe Cop Game. It excels in terms of a retro-inspired RPG that the game’s presentation properly utilizes the absurdist humor of its source material. Red Triangle Games went the extra mile in capturing the essence of 8-bit retro-style JRPG’s while keeping the gameplay fresh and exciting, and it shows. This is a game that fans of the comics or the animated show will most likely appreciate more, but for newbies, the story is structured in such a way that it makes sense, even when the absurdist imaginative storytelling of a 5-year-old might throw most people off. But at least the gameplay allows players of all types to dip their toes into something new, and I do hope this game creates a new generation of fans or at the very least is ported to other consoles since retro-style games are digitally making a comeback.