A lot of indie platformers draw inspiration from the Mega Man X series, and for good reason. They’re iconic, classic games, but in paying homage to them, so many developers seem to focus primarily on the feel of platforming and combat without paying equal focus to the visual brilliance that also made those games shine. That imbalance has led to plenty of games that feel good, but look like cheap knockoffs. That’s not the case with Super Alloy Crush. This game is filled with vivid visuals, gorgeous character designs, and striking art that pair perfectly with the incredible, buttery-smooth gameplay.
Super Alloy Crush focuses on a crew of intergalactic treasure hunters who have all come together aboard the Ranger – a spaceship that takes them from planet to planet in search of butts to kick and cosmic prizes to collect. It’s a swift, simple, but immediately understandable narrative setup that reminds me of something like Cowboy Bebop. It gives you a basic understanding of what you’re here for, but is mostly just the bare minimum structure needed to justify a variety of biomes, boss battles, and neon-colored anime girls. That’s not to say the game is light on storytelling, because you’ve got plenty of dialogue scenes and 3 chapters of a linear story mode to work through as of the current Early Access release.
At the end of the day, all of this is held together by the incredible gameplay. I name dropped Mega Man X earlier, and while Super Alloy Crush does lift heavy inspiration from that game, it’s a far more combat-focused adventure. You won’t be struggling with platforming challenges or instant-death pits. Every level is a tightly designed set of rooms you need to battle your way through as one of two characters. Muu is a melee-focused character with giant blue claws and a toolkit built around constant up-close pressure. She’s really fun to play as, and gives the game a really unique feel that skews so much more toward a belt-action brawler style of gameplay. Your other option, Kelly, is a more ranged-oriented fighter with a mix of slide-kicks and mid-air attacks that give you a lot of options on how to approach foes. He’s incredibly satisfying to use against the bigger bosses in the game, but for encounters with lots of grunts or fast-moving elites I felt like Muu was a much more natural option to match those odds.
As you battle regular foes, defeat bosses, and bust open golden crates, you’ll gather gold that you can spend back on the Ranger. Super Alloy Crush keeps the loop of upgrading and battling really satisfying by offering a variety of different upgrade paths to go down. You aren’t just leveling up or getting flat stat upgrades – you can choose to unlock new attacks, equip new skills, unlock battle companions, or expand your available chip slots for further upgrades. There’s no right answer, and the path you go down really depends on the kind of build you’re trying to put together. Ironically, I actually feel like the build crafting loop is more rewarding in story mode than it is in the wave-based roguelike Battle Rush mode. The ability to slowly upgrade your gear and tinker with a build is really satisfying in the story, but that rewarding meta-progression isn’t quite there yet in Battle Rush.
There’s also some pretty wildly inconsistent difficulty balance across the board in Super Alloy Crush. Grunt enemies are generally pretty easy to deal with. On top of that, your resource pool for health restoration and revives is incredibly abundant. The sweatiest challenges were consistently the boss battles, but I wish that sense of difficulty was a more consistent presence in the game.
Thankfully, there’s room for these issues to be addressed. Super Alloy Crush is a freshly released Early Access title, and that goes both ways – the absence of content after chapter 3 is painfully noticeable, but the devs are very vocal about the work they plan to do to expand and polish the game based on player feedback. What’s here now is already an incredibly impressive start, so pain-points aside I’m excited to see this game get bigger and better as it heads to a full release.
