《Maximum Thunderness》上手前瞻：周六晨间卡通式混乱

Maximum Thunderness is a co-op roguelike sidescrolling action game set in a ridiculous Saturday Morning Cartoon universe. Yea, that's a lot to decipher. Let me help with a breakdown of my hands-on preview.

For the gameplay, think Castle Crashers but with guns. In other words, a very familiar shoot 'em up experience. It is an extremely slick sidescroller that rewards precise movement with what can become a very chaotic screen.

You'll have access to three different heroes from the titular hero group, Maximum Thunderness. They all play wildly different from the other. One is a sniper with long range, high damage attacks. The classic glass cannon. Another has two guns and plays like a more classic shoot 'em up character. Finally, you'll have the tank-like character that gets up in the faces of enemies.

For my time with the game, I played as Krash Nitro, the dual-wielding shooter. A small but welcome addition to his gameplay is active reload, like from Gears of War. Sometimes shoot 'em ups can easily become just hold down button and move, where this made me have to be more strategic and added to the moment-to-moment gameplay.

Tied into all of this is a roguelike system that functions extremely similarly to Slay the Spire, in several respects. You have a map of levels, some of which are rest stops or shops or what have you, and you'll pick your way to the level to the boss at the end.

You also can collect trinkets that change up your gameplay along the way, so no one is the same as the other. I didn't play the game enough to really dig into these, but there was a lot of variety.

Where you really hone-in a run is with the upgrade rewards you get at the end of a level and can be purchased from the shops in a run.

For example, Krash is equipped with a jetpack to quickly avoid something. It's usually in a short burst to move around. There is an upgrade path that increases fire damage and you could make the jetpack your primary means of doing damage as you float around the battlefield, along with making your bullets do fire damage too.

You could even make a build around the active reload, with some upgrades increasing your damage or other effects if you accurately pull the reload off.

Tying it all together is a wonderfully fun theme full of humor that will make you chuckle. The world has been invaded by alien forces and you must put a stop to them. Their crimes? Pirating movies through people's WiFi and more. Where will the madness end?

Humor is very much a "your mileage may vary" situation, but Maximum Thunderness leans into its particular identity wonderfully. Everything is colored by absurd jokes that further build their world out. To be honest, I think it's something most people would get a good kick out of.

Maximum Thunderness is co-op, which is an interesting mix within the roguelike genre. Up to three people can play at once, and you'll have your upgrade paths, currency to buy things with, etc.

Maximum Thunderness Preview | Final Thoughts

At its core, I think there's a really fun game to kill some time on some runs with. Even more, I think the chaotic nature of it lends itself to being a really great co-op experience.

I wasn't sure what I'd feel walking into Maximum Thunderness, but I walked away feeling like it has absolutely nailed its identity and will certainly find an audience of diehard fans.

Andrew is the Editor in Chief at TechRaptor. Conned into a love of gaming by Nintendo at a young age, Andrew has been chasing the dragon spawned by… More about Andrew