Tilt Pack Review

The Nintendo Switch really stands out and shine when it comes to its games, there is nothing better than getting a bunch of friends and family members together to battle it out and just enjoy each other’s company. The ones that mainly stand out for me are Super Smash Bros, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe as well as Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020. These personally are the bread and butter when it comes to social games where you can play locally or online and have a huge competitive factor, which is one of the reasons I got drawn to Tilt Pack when I saw the trailer for it on YouTube. It looked like another fun-filled Arena fighter that could liven up a night in with the friends and family but sadly the fire burnt out quite quickly with the game as it is overshadowed by other games that the Switch has to offer.

Sadly the game doesn’t come with a storyline, you have a selection of characters if you can even call them that and you just have to use your chosen character to knock the opponents off the arena, it’s as simple as that. There is a single-player mode which allows you to face off against the other characters but it is just one vs one. Painfully you can complete this way too quickly and have nothing else to do, I thought I might have to go through the single-player with all the characters to unlock something else but sadly this wasn’t the case which was disappointing. Then you have the versus mode which is where you’ll be spending all your game time pretty much, it pits you against up to three AI players or three other players but only on local bases. This is truly where the game shines because when you have more players on the arenas things get hepatic, over the top and fun. Trying to push your friends off the arena but then having someone else trying to do it to you is a great laugh and really shows off the potential that this game could have had.

You get different areas that are loosely based upon a different topic which allows for a variety in the levels that you fight on. You can get items that help you out like a mace that one-hit kills an opponent and a pill that makes your character grow in size but other than this you just have to avoid the level elements that can also kill you. For example one of the arenas has blocks that disappear so it’s a race against time to kill the other players before the map disappears beneath you, then you have one where spikes will appear from the ground, sides or above you and if you touch them you’ll die, so there is a sense of variety to the levels to help shake up the basic gameplay of trying to push each other off the map.

Mechanically, there isn’t much to this game. It’s that simple, I’m sure you could train a dog to play it, all you have to do is use the left stick to move your chosen character and that’s it. I did mention above about the items that can be picked up and the environmental hazards that are present on certain arenas but ultimately these can be used and avoided all with the analogue stick on the joy-con. I understand that this is what the company are going for but then they must have known that this isn’t enough to keep people engaged for long periods of time.

Graphically it is what you’d expect from this type of game, Colourful, vibrant and children friendly.  The soundtrack isn’t anything to rave about but it suits the style of game, basically, Tilt Pack ticks the boxes for being a children-friendly arcade game and gives off the vibe that this game is intended purely for kids. Yeah sure adults and teens can play it too but there are better games out there that suits our age group like Smash Bros and Dragon Ball: FighterZ

The game doesn’t really offer much in terms of replay value, once you have completed the single-player which can be done in like thirty minutes there isn’t much going for this game sadly. Yeah, you can pull it out to show your friends a new game and have a few rounds as like a pregame to the main game but ultimately it falls flat on its face with its repetitive bland gameplay. Though not going to lie it can be a laugh when playing with a full party of four.

Closing Statement 

Overall, Tilt Pack was an average game that kept me entertained for around two hours at max, sadly when playing on your own there isn’t much going for this game but when played with people you see it flourish and become something that bit more enjoyable to play, there are foundations for this game to be something that would be really good but with its mind set on being a simple game where the whole purpose is to knock someone off an arena, there isn’t much more you can do with it. It would have been nice to see more of a story maybe even if it was just a corny one that played on something silly but when it comes down to it, asking for £12.99 is a lot of money for a game where you’ll become bored of it quite easily.

Please bear in mind that I’m probably not the target audience for this game, if you was to get it for your children then it will probably work just fine and be an amazing Friday night game to play with your kids but in terms of future-proofing it against other games, once you get over the gimmick the game offers, you’ll turn straight back to the likes of Zelda, Mario and Pokémon. For those reasons, I’m going to have to give the game an average score of 5/10.

This game was reviewed on Nintendo Switch

You can purchase the game here on the Nintendo eShop.

Tilt Pack was developed by Navel and Published by super.com

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