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The film franchises of Halloween and Evil Dead are certainly no strangers to being adapted to video games, as both have been featured in various video games over the years, spanning a large amount of time and different styles of games, including iterations all the way back on the Atari 2600 up to the current generation of hardware in 2022.
Despite having so many previous appearances in games, both franchises are getting new adaptations in this year’s RetroRealms project, where 2D gaming veterans WayForward (Shantae, Bloodstained) collaborated with Boss Team Games (Evil Dead: The Game,) planning to bring together several different horror icons or franchises into a shared video game universe that doesn’t interfere with the respective canon of the properties themselves.
Though there may be plans for more games added to this universe later, to start out, the RetroRealms series is releasing these first two games, based on the original 1978 Halloween film and the 2015 Ash vs. Evil Dead series, respectively, and making them into 2D pixel-platformer action games. This marks the first attempt at this style for both franchises in video game form, and now we’ve had time to play through what this package has to offer and see if they’re worth a look as new ways to interact with the classic horror franchises.
When first booting up the game, you’re greeted with a first-person 3D hub world that looks like a 1980s arcade warehouse, and features a few extras that we’ll talk about later, but it’s a fun setup and a clever way to introduce the universe of these games to new players. After choosing which game you’d like to check out first, you’ll be thrown into the world of RetroRealms.
Both of the games in this package take form as 2D action platformers, with heavy influences from especially the Mega Man and Castlevania side of things, which makes for a rather fun gameplay style, with relatively well-designed levels and mechanics, even if it isn’t the deepest or most complex system out there. It finds a nice blend of elements from various 2D action games and manages to feel like something of its own, to a certain extent, while also featuring a lot of options of how to play, based on the different character abilities available.
Speaking of the character options, it’s worth mentioning that you can technically purchase only the Halloween or Ash vs. Evil Dead games separately, but if you purchase both of them together, you’ll be able to use any of the characters from both games interchangeably as you like, allowing for currently four different characters to be used in each game. Both the Halloween and AVED games come with ten unique stages of their own, making for a total of twenty stages that can be played with four characters each, which creates technically a lot of content, even though most of it will be comprised of replaying levels you’ve already played with a different character.
Thankfully, each character also does have a unique story to go along with their trek through each subsequent game, even though it’s mostly just relegated to some text dialogue before and after each stage and boss fight, but it does give something unique as a motivation to keep playing the same stages over again. The stages all run fairly short, at usually no more than 7-10 minutes each, depending how much item and collectible hunting you do.
The character abilities are upgraded by collecting currency in the game, which allows for more combat options as well as abilities to reach previously unreachable areas in certain stages, giving a little more motivation for replays overall. Granted, your mileage will vary, since the stages will still be the same, even if there’s a little room for trying new strategies with each character’s move set, but it won’t vastly change the experience.
The difficulty of the game is relatively low for this type of action platformer and the action feels a little slower-paced than many others, most likely to make it more accessible for more casual gamers who are just fans of the film series, but it will still have its occasional moments of challenge even for veterans of the genre, especially when going for the collectibles. The stages all feature some fun characters and references to their respective source material, which are a treat for fans who know the franchises well.
The collectibles allow you to unlock a handful of extras in the arcade hub world, including a 3D model museum featuring artifacts from each game and franchise, interactable dioramas, and behind-the-scenes videos about the making of the games, which are all fun additions to the package.
Overall, this package is rather enjoyable if you’re into 2D action games, and provides a decent amount of content if you purchase both games, but that is a bit of a caveat, since the whole package together costs $50 USD. This might be a little steep for the amount of truly unique gameplay here, but if you’re a fan of either series, $25 each might not be too steep if you’re just excited to have a new experience within the franchise you love.
This certainly doesn’t feel as impactful as some of the more recent fleshed-out film-to-game adaptations like Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Friday the 13th, or Blair Witch, but it still feels a little more meaningful than something like a Dead By Daylight appearance from your favorite franchise. This will still be a fun time for fans who are either starving for any new content from their favorite horror franchises or who are already 2D action fans to begin with, but might be a hard sell for more hardcore horror fans looking for a more cinematic or narrative experience out of the Halloween or AVED series.
(7 / 10)
Good
(7 / 10)Rely on Horror Review Score Guide
A PC review code was provided by the publisher.
