Reviews

• 

  Zoey Morningstar

  Sep 19, 2018

  10/10 artwork and soundtrack
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  Akaza

  Sep 19, 2018

  The character-design and soundtrack are really, really good! Combat's got a nice curve wherein you learn to get better and better at building your momentum along with your combo-weaving. You'll continuosly be challenging yourself to get faster and faster, more and more accurate! A solid recommendation!
• 

  Darkvizardberrytan

  Sep 19, 2018

  Seeing some reviews I have no idea how you can rate a game with literally less than 20 minutes played lol. That said I can say with 2 hours in so far the game is quite fun. It takes some time to get use to the combat. You do more damage based on how fast your moving. Sometimes it can be hard to counter certain attacks with the small window they give you but when you do it feels good. Missing the gold by mere seconds makes me want to go back and try it again. And not many games can do that for me. Also the music is great! At only 20 dollars this is a great buy.
• 

  EpicMorgana

  Sep 19, 2018

  This game is fuckin awesome. really fun combat, awesome characters with cool ass moves. The games keeps you moving with its almost race like structure, if you like beat em ups, this is a good one to try out and enjoy
• 

  solstar021

  Sep 20, 2018

  This game rewards you so much for having on point dodges, high speed from the get go and being able to flow like the wind in combat. If you wanted to have a beat'em up race game this is what you should get!
• 

  morhkt

  Sep 22, 2018

  I love how immersive this game is thanks to excellent and orignal worldbuilding, art and soundtrack. The combat system feels fluid and intuitive, even playing on a keyboard. The difficulty is tuned just right to make it challenging but not frustrating. The feeling of progression as I improve my reflexes and figure out new tricks keeps me wanting to come back for more. tl;dr: super fun!
• 

  IMPERSONATED_STAFF

  Sep 25, 2018

  Speed Brawl is a game that seeks to combine brawling side scrolling action with time trials. You assemble a team to speed through the streets of London bashing baddies to wow the audience and collect fat pay checks. Immediately Speed Brawl hits you with gusto after you boot it up. The opening animation is fantastic with lots of character. It pumps you up and gets you ready for fast paced action. However, as you play that game you'll realize the opening feels nothing like the gameplay. The game itself has many layers that attempt to build complexity on the brawler formula- you have an elemental system, loot drops, ailments, cash, shops, skills, characters, and more. Mechanically, there is a lot. However, most pieces are shallow and don't have a large impact on the game. The elemental system, for example, never feels like it matters. The game mentions that certain elements (all weapons and armor have an element) are more or less effective on certain baddies, but to be honest you can defeat enemies all the same. I never felt more or less vulnerable by diversifying or consolidating my elemental gear properties on a character. The loot system if fairly thin- each tier may only have a dozen or so pieces of equipment, so there isn't much choice or thinking when it comes to picking the best gear. Just go for the biggest numbers. As such, most items are pawned off for money. Furthermore the equipment is divided: one type for brutes while other are made for speedsters. Yet when it comes to the numbers they are both the same. This means your slow brutes do the same damage output and armor as your speedy, rapid attack characters. Trinkets, items that grant a passive ability, feature a “give and take” design at tier 2 and above. Most don't impact the game that strongly to justify the design philosophy, as such tier 1 trinkets tend to be the most efficient. Character choice and skills on the other hand, tend to have the greatest impact on play and refine a player's particular play style. The skill tree is simplistic but empowers a character in various ways like giving them more health or making their special moves more deadly. The skill tree is done well. The controls can feel slow or off when first starting the game- though this is due to a delay inputted to ease online play. (like all games that can be played online) But Speed Brawl doesn't care if you are online or not- you get the delay anyway. You can reduce this by going into some the program files and change the delay to 0, but as of yet there is no in game way of doing this. Worst of all, half of the character cast just don't feel fun. The game's brute force characters get the short end of the stick and just don't do enough damage, have enough reach, or other fun things to differentiate themselves from the speedy ones. Hell even when you turn on a characters' stats they all have roughly the same variables- save in speed. Most bosses tend to be rinse and repeat affairs. Tough side, weak side, lots of turning, with time as your greatest enemy. The remaining bosses are just beefed up normal baddies with tons more HP and greater attack strength. Even then the only “unique” bosses (a mantis-like creature) is used three times and the other (a beetle) used twice while also used as an uncommon enemy. This is disappointing because boss fights ought to be something different from the norm- the cherry on top. Only the roof-tops (the half-way point in the game) has a unique boss and how it is used. The stages can be hit or miss. While the hazards can be fun and challenging they tend to be the only unique factor from stage to stage. Most stages are horizontal runs with stopping points where you fight. Though the game tries to mix it up with pole racing or an “excitement meter” (In order to pass you must fill the meter by attacking, but not get hit) it still feels very same-y. Even older beat'em ups shook up game play with auto-scroll levels (Like in Turtle in Time), shooting galleries (Like in Sunset Riders), precise platforming (Like in Double Dragons), and other diversions to keep game play fresh. For example, Speed Brawl could have very easily had at least one vertical-styled level since every character can double jump, wall cling, wall slide, and air dash. (That's a lot of air time! ) Hell it might have been an “infamous level” that sticks in your mind, but instead the stages are all forgettable. There is also no “retry” button on the results screen if you fail or just want to try again for a better time- forcing you to wait through a few loading screens, dialog, and confirmations to get back where you started. Yug. If you enjoy games like Captain Commando, Streets of Rage, Final Fight, and the speed of the side scrolling Sonic series, you won't get your kicks here. Players who are new to either racing or brawling genre want to steer clear of the title. Though this game bursting with charm, it doesn't not have the polish to match. Which sucks, because I think there is a good game in here. It just needed more time to be tweaked, get additional feed back, and polish.
• 

  odin123

  Oct 13, 2018

  I played this game at a friends house for about 5 hours, I had to come home a get myself a copy. If you like video game combat you owe it to yourself to play this game. There is nothing out there quite like Speed Brawl. It is one of the most satisfying games I have ever played. On top of all that it has incredible RPG mechanics. This means armor weapons and rings can be equipped to one of 6 characters. The level design is also extremely inventive. It is always a race against the clock, but sometimes you are trying to get a maximum damage output and sometimes you are just purely racing across the level trying to beat the clock. I have only scratched the surface of the game, but I already feel like I got more than my moneys worth. Its 20 bucks Buy it now!
• 

  Ilex

  Oct 18, 2018

  It's an amazing game, if your a fan of high-speed brawlers and sidescrolling gams, this one is a must!
• 

  FusionJay

  Feb 21, 2019

  An interesting concept but mediocre. - The shop needed some interesting equipment or better stats versus the rewards you receive when completing the level. - Ending --- cliffhanger ? I was interested in completing it for the story and that was disappointing. Not my cup of tea!
• 

  peppage

  Mar 3, 2019

  https://youtu.be/u7SJI-IkAFQ Pretty good idea having a race with brawling checkpoints. I found them to be a ton of fun because the simple fighting gives you a lot of power. You're able to bounce around between enemies and knock them up. However it's not easy when you start to get a lot of enemies on the screen. Swapping characters is fun and the skill tree is good. The gear though is very tedious and it's a chore to equip the best gear after each fight. Sometimes the character you want to play doesn't have the best gear and that's a shame. So good fighting but the speed part is lacking. Getting between fights is too slow. The speed levels are OK but I was skipping them by the end. Overall the races work though.
• 

  Rinera

  May 17, 2019

  It's a nice idea... but extremely boring execution. The whole game is about getting into the right momentum and mindset after a bit of practice in order to brawl your way to the speedy top, but nothing actually works well enough to do that. Animations are extremely sluggish, what you'd usually find in a slower game. Music is horribly stock. Sound effects are annoyingly stock. Voice acting is cringy. I can't think of ONE thing that actually works to make you pumped up about the eventual acceleration to victory. Well the game is colourful I'll give it that... No I will not apologize for the speed puns made in this 5 seconds review, I was in a rush and it had to be hasted.
• 

  K_-_O_-_V

  Jun 6, 2019

  (⌐■_■)b
• 

  rambo_fox

  May 18, 2020

  Awesome sprites, awesome music, awesome cut-scenes--how could this possibly be bad? Well, it isn't. It just ultimately isn't awesome either b/c there's way too much of the same thing. or b/c there's no challenge. I'm 80 minutes in, and I've even acquired a new character, and everything looks and sounds exactly the same as when I started! The challenge is not so much surviving and progressing (as in most brawlers) but in doing it as fast as possible. Rather than encourage creative gameplay, this encourages being cheap--doing the same thing over and over (dash hit combo over and over). On top of that, the enemy sprites aren't that diverse (I've encountered 4 so far), and the level music sounds... the same! Compare this with the sublime Fight-N-Rage where you have such a fun arsenal of combos, an ever changing soundtrack for every area and killer boss-fights along with a great difficulty curve, and there is no competition between the two. I wish I could recommend this game, but I can't. I hope the developers take this well-intended critique to heart and rethink things for their next release.
• 

  The Sinless Assassin

  Sep 2, 2020

  This game is an incredible rush of adrenaline! It really gets your heart pumping and your mind racing when you've gathered the right momentum. Speed Brawl is what happens when you mix Sonic style speed and turn it into a combo heavy beat 'em up. It's a momentum based beat 'em up, if you will. The art style and a bit of the pre and post level dialogue reminds me of classic Saturday morning cartoons from when I was a kid, except with polished designs and a refreshing modern colour palette. The music has a groovy rock feel with tiny bits of techno added in there, and most of all the gameplay is TOP NOTCH. Each Brawler comes with a normal attack that can be modified into launchers or sliding attacks (meant to close the distance as well as give you a smooth way to slow down upon approaching an enemy), a special that requires a stamina bar to use, your typical double jumps, and of course your SUPER special that spans the entire screen. Alongside that you can tag your partner in to either fight for you or perform their special move and get out of the fray once they've dealt their extra damage. There are six aesthetically and stylistically diverse characters to choose from, and for each level you get to choose two to play as. Half the team consists of Speedsters, while the other half consists of Tanks, and choosing the right combination of characters will drastically affect your playstyle for the level. What I love about this game is that it is deceptively complex. At first glance it looks like you'll just be mashing buttons mindlessly, but doing so actually gets you thrown around like a rag doll and have your momentum interrupted. Speed Brawl is all about maintaining break neck speed as you zip through the screen attacking enemies in all areas in the most efficient way possible. I honestly wish there was more footage of this game on YouTube where players string long combos and maintain the speed the game was meant to be played in, because as of now, all the footage I can find on YouTube just doesn't express how stylish and thrilling this game can be. With all due respect, all I see is players treating it like a regular old brawler taking their sweet time beating up enemies when they can be swinging off poles and kicking off walls to wipe enemies out at breakneck speed. It makes me wish the people with high scores on the leaderboards would record and upload their gameplay as I would love to see the game played at its full potential. Lowkey shade aside, though, this IS an incredible game even at full price. The campaign is kind of short as most levels can be finished within 1-3 minutes if played right, or maybe 5-10 if you want to take your time by either treating it like an old fashioned beat em up without any regard to its momentum based mechanics--or if you're like me and want to play it at a slower pace sometimes just to see what options you have available as you study enemy behaviour. One thing I'd like to see more of in YouTube footage is the use of dashes and dodges as they seem to be the bread and butter of this game. Although everything moves so fast, the enemies are actually kind of slow in setting up their moves, and there's even a shining indicator that tells you when they are about to strike so you can time a dash at the right time. Do a perfect dash and you can do a follow up counter attack that does extra damage, otherwise you just roll past the attack and can attack in turn normally. Then on top of that is using the dash to maneuver around the screen, which can be done from any position and any direction. BUT the best way to use the dash, I find, is by kicking off walls and swinging off poles as it increases your speed thus increasing your damage. Anyways I can go on forever about how much fun this game is, I will just end with the score of 9/10. The story could've been better and fully voiced, and the equipment management aspect just seems like tedious busy work with very little effect at first (but does become important later as the game goes on), but these are minor nitpicks for an otherwise SOLID and UNIQUE momentum based brawler.
• 

  Captain Chaos

  Jan 23, 2021

  An entertaining blend of beat-em-up and speedrunning game, Speed Brawl is about going fast, hitting fast, and having fun doing it. I typically don't enjoy games that time you and rank you thereof, but SB is an exception. I first played the game at PAX East about two years ago, and it immediately grabbed my attention with it's extremely slick controls. The time and place: An alternate late-19th-Century England where they have just barely won a war with giant, invading Lunar insects called Selenites. In a battle-scarred London still in the process of rebuilding, the favored sport of the masses is the titular Speed Brawl: A show of force and celerity where competitors must negotiate a course of hazards, captive Selenites and their handlers in the fastest time possible. Our two main protagonists, the scrappy, runaway-scion-of-a-wealthy-family Ebba and burly-but-thoughtful prizefighter Bia, have their sights set on reaching the top of the sport's four main leagues. Along the way they'll joined by the sassy street urchin Cassie Pain, stern rail worker Johnson Kite, the frilly, rose-tossing, Tuxedo-Mask-wannabe Karl von Ambrose, and top-hatted steambot AtomaTom. Standing in their way are the afforementioned bugs and thugs, as well as the sport's conniving organizers: The whiny, diminutive Willy, the imposing Stepan Kalashnikov and his tempestuous partner Faina, the hard-assed Commodore Jack Townsend and the mysterious Hugo Wells, the Duke of the Moon- the man who saved England and won the Lunar War. Speed Brawl grab's the players attention right away with an eye-catching, colorful, comic-book artstyle and entertaining dialogue before and after each level. And it gets better once you're in-game. As I mentioned above, Speed Brawl handles incredibly smoothly- moving through the environment and attacking enemies is simple, chaining combos is intuitive, and using specials and super attacks is flashy, fun, and effective. The game rarely if ever fights you in the way that a 2D Side-Scroller ought not to do, but does anyway in the case of games like Castlevania or Mercenary Kings. Speed Brawl is possibly the least janky 2D game I have ever played and other developers could learn from its example. The game's core campaign is split up into bitesized levels that take mere minutes to complete, whereupon you are judged on the speed at which you completed the level. Any completed challenge contributes to your account level, with level-ups conferring a skill point for each of your characters. You also receive equipment and money with which to buy more gear from shops- each can equip gloves, boots and special items, affecting attack, defense and other attributes like health or stamina respectively. Aside from the equip, shop and skill menus, there is also a codex page where you can read about the characters, items and enemies. SB can be played solo or in two player coop, and has a tag-in system: Each player can choose two characters and can switch between them on the fly, with the tagged-in character performing an attack as they arrive, so you can weave tagging into your combos for advanced play. If a character runs out of health, whether it's one of yours or the other player's, you can revive them within a short window of time. There is also a versus mode, but naturally I have not partaken of such. It might be fun, but for me typically versus modes are much less so then cooperative ones. Speed Brawl has a certain spark of fun and aesthetic quality that puts it above many other games with similar elements of gameplay and design. If have any love for platformers or beat em ups, or speedrunning for that matter, Speed Brawl is absolutely worth your time and money.
• 

  XxWednesdayxX

  Feb 20, 2021

  Worth the price for the amount of fun you get in coop with your friends.
• 

  Roda the Red

  Apr 9, 2021

  Really cool game that's criminally overlooked. The combat is fast and fluid with plenty of characters with distinctive playstyles, and the game's art is extremely good
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  sh4mike

  Jul 15, 2021

  Wow, this game is amazing. First few rounds left a mediocre impression, as I spammed basic attack chains. But once I weaved in the godly Dash button, the training wheels were off. Kudos to the dev team for how much fun they put into that single button -- Dash attacks, Wall attacks, Pole attacks, directional input sensitive and chargeable. Great movement flexibility around the screen, being able to link basic attacks, up attacks, down attacks, double jumps, and dashes all while airborne. Plenty of depth with different specials, ultras, assist calls, and tag attacks between the 6 characters. Probably my favorite 2D combat system across hundreds of similar games. It hurts that this game didn't find a larger audience.
• 

  Wavuvi

  Feb 28, 2022

  GOOD THINGS: - Game handles well and feels like there is a lot of potential to get good and string together satisfying combos. - Art style is excellent. - Music really gets you pumped. MINOR COMPLAINTS - Leveling up is a false way to feel like your getting better at the game. It actually does so little if it wasn't there I wouldn't miss it. - Random equipment for mission complete. All this does is make a messy inventory that wastes time with menuing to sell things. Straight gold rewards and a standard shop for standard equipment would have been better for a game about going fast. - No option to disable cut scenes on missions that have already been completed. - Cut scenes have a lot of text dialog that really don't say anything. By the second area I stopped caring and skipped them entirely. - Sometimes I can spam calling in my partner to do an assist attack. Sometimes I can't call them at all. I have no idea why. They were alive and had no status effects on them. MAJOR COMPLAINTS - No intuitive way to know if enemies will super armor through hits. The first area mostly lets you button mash things to death. By the second area some enemies seem to randomly hit you out of combos or do uninteruptable combo attacks. - The amount of twitch reaction required to avoid some attacks is frustrating. It is NOT a matter of 'learning the timing' because the attacks have random start up times. - Enemies running away or not bothering to engage at all. On some of the bigger arenas it seems like some little piss ant has just been chilling in the corner for the entire combat section and ends up eating precious timer to go hunt it down. - Bad enemy spawn triggers. Remember that enemy that was hiding from you the whole fight? Turns out killing that one spawns 1 more, which in turn spawns another after that one! You just lost 30 seconds flailing around to kill 1 thing over and over again. On longer levels where this happens each fight it becomes really tedious to have to learn what to target first to save time on spawn ins. - Bosses The other gripes weren't enough to spoil the game for me. The bosses are a big part of why I wish I had just refunded my money after the first one. The game is called speed brawl. Taking on the enemy hordes is entertaining and satisfying as you fly around the screen knocking them around and dodging attacks. Bosses are counter intuitive to this. The first boss makes you think, "Okay, I'll wait for it to charge, jump over it, and attack." But then it immediately turns around and punishes you for it. So you think "Okay, I'll wait for it to charge, jump in FRONT of it to avoid the attack, and wait for it to turn around." But it doesn't turn around. So you think, "Okay, I'll jump over, jump over it AGAIN, then I can attack it." So you jump over the first attack, jump over the second, land thinking you can finally hit it... and it turns around AGAIN and hits you. Now there are other tools you can use to deal with this, like using a stamina move to pass through it (which not all fighters can do), or getting a perfect dodge into a counter to knock it down (remember that random attack speed issue I mentioned earlier)? I always refunded because I wasn't sure if it was worth it to 'git gud'. If I wanted this kind of trial and error boss fights I'd play a souls-like. So I gave the game another chance and got gud, or at least a little better. Things went pretty well through the second area until I get to the boss. This was not a hard boss, it was a slog boss. You face 2 unflinching super versions of the ball and chain enemies that call in bugs. You could get them to flinch by dodge countering their ball and chain attack, but remember that random attack time issue I mentioned? Also poison shooting bugs and a flying sniper-like enemy constantly spawn in. You would think, "Okay, I'll kill the adds, focus on the bosses while they summon new ones, and repeat until I win." Except the adds just keep coming. They join in so fast it isn't even worth killing them except for maybe the crystal sniper eye-thing. So most of the fight is getting a small combo on one of them, dodging away from the 5 projectiles (and maybe a ball and chain) coming at you, and flailing around to try and get behind one of them again for free damage. Except your fighter loves to move forward, so when you're mashing away at their massive health bar you frequently clip into them and get hit by the ball and chain attack. Once again I'm faced with a 'git gud' situation. I tried the fight a few more times and couldn't seem to improve this time. It wasn't fun or engaging. It sucked the 'speed' part out of the game. There you go. Angry story time of how bosses ruined a solid but unpolished game for me. I have no further desire to deal with the minor gripes about the game just to lead into more frustrating and tedious boss fights that feel out of place compared to the rest of the experience.