Albacete Warrior [Xbox]
Developed by EastAsiaSoft and FAS3, Albacete Warrior is described as a ‘bizarre martial arts adventure’, and to be perfectly honest, I don’t know how else to describe it other than that. The game begins with some loooooong cutscenes, peppered with extended dialogue masquerading as gameplay; and just when you think you’re gonna get to play, you’re back to just tapping A to proceed through the chatter. Finally, the game begins with you in the role of Benito, a Spanish ninja - now re-telling this story as he works in a bar - alongside his trusty buddy, Pepito. Together, they go off on adventures across the globe, cockslapping everything in sight. Now, that isn’t as dirty as it’s insinuated to be; the game puts a lot of emphasis on it for laughs, but hearing it over and over again quickly makes it as stale as some two-week old bread.
Right off the bat, everything felt awkward and clunky: movement is in this weird zone between feeling super slippy and floaty, and feeling really slow and sticky, which makes it quite difficult to get to grips with. Moving from surface to surface - both normal jumping and wall-climbing - feels uncontrollable, sending you miles beyond where you intend. There seems to be a slight problem with the depth of the levels, as moving from closer to the screen to further away seems to exacerbate the issue - and platforming becomes stuttery as you jump from one platform to the next, losing all momentum due to there being some kind of invisible wall to slow you down (presumably to reduce the likelihood of falling off accidentally). Combat is similarly funky, being a bit unresponsive at times, with attacks feeling pointlessly weak against the bosses, whilst dealing with everyone else in a single shot.
Your attacks aren’t the only thing weak here, Benito himself is pretty fragile too. You can find ham that will instantly restore health, but it can’t be stored for later, whereas you can find drinks hidden around levels that you can keep a hold of until you need them, with up to five being able to be held at any one time. The only unfortunate thing is that taking the time to drink leaves you completely vulnerable - not what you need when you’re already trying to make up for lost health, particularly during critical moments during boss fights.
You have a ‘Dark Power’ mode, which requires you filling your meter and then pressing both triggers, though this ability is extremely hit or miss. Using it in some boss fights leads to death 99% of the time, making it so unbelievably redundant as an ability. There are other abilities that are gained over time, such as a shuriken, but these abilities just add to the confusing jumble that the game has already lain out before you, so they don’t actually make anything any more fun, sadly.
The visual style of Albacete Warrior, with 2D sprites running around 3D environments, is an interesting choice that works surprisingly well; though some characters - particularly the larger ones - do look a tad cheap and cheesy. Each level has its own specific theme, culminating in a boss fight that somewhat matches it. You might find yourself working your way through hieroglyphic-filled temples to fight Ra, or lava-filled Aztec ruins to fight Quetzalcoatl (misspelled as Quetzacoatl); though Trump does make a random appearance, too. The soundtrack was actually pretty decent throughout, which made for a pleasant surprise.
Overall, Albacete Warrior is a mess. It’s janky, frustrating, and filled with a bunch of bugs and glitches that make it even more of a slog to get through, but there is still something intriguing about it. The excessive swearing and crude humour almost takes the edge off at times - but it just tries too hard to be funny, getting a few laughs here and there… but at what cost? You start off thinking it’s going for the crude humour angle, which fair enough, works for a lot of games. But the incessant repetition of the same cock joke over and over again does begin to wear you down - and everything else it throws at you ends up being a bit of a cringe-fest, too.
It’s not all bad (just mostly) - the ending was one of the most inventive I’ve seen, with you climbing back up through the end credits, so I’ve got to give it some respect for that. Priced at £8.39 on Xbox, it’s not a title I’d recommend picking up at full price - there’s plenty of other titles you could nab that will give you better value and far more enjoyment - but if you really must play it, then wait for a sale.
In the end, we decided to give Albacete Warrior the Collecting Asylum rating of 3/10.
Are you interested in Albacete Warrior? What do you think of it?
Let us know in the comments below!
- V x
Thank you to EastAsiaSoft for the Albacete Warrior Xbox review code!
