A run ’n’ gun shooter in the vein of Gunstar Heroes, Eduardo is the first effort from indie developer Semnat Studios and as a debut title from a bunch of young guys with barely any cash, it’s pretty reasonable. However, while it’s crammed full of style, there’s a real lack of substance; there are definitely the green shoots of a solid game in evidence here, but they fail to blossom into anything remarkable. Which is a shame.

But let’s consider the positives first. All the graphics have been hand drawn using a mixture of styles and it looks fantastic, bursting with colorful levels and surreal enemies. The hero (who, as you may have guessed, is a toaster) fires toast and other toastable pastries as he faces a succession of utterly bizarre enemies that include spear-throwing carrots and bees wearing sunglasses. The music is excellent too. Ranging from chilled to frantic, it draws on techno and traditional Eastern music to create a great sense of atmosphere.

While it’d be hard – or at least very mean – to fault the presentation, that’s all there really is here and you can’t help but feel it’s more of a showcase for the skills of artist and director Daniel Coleman than an actual game. For starters, there’s no semblance of a story. You’re a toast-firing samurai toaster who does battle with freaky things across 13 levels. That’s it – there’s not a jot of explanation as to why.

More importantly, there’s barely any meat to the fighting. You scroll from left to right, and occasionally from up to down or vice versa, and either blast away using the 1 button with your standard toast or powered-up ammo that you’ve picked up. You can jump using the 2 button and grab enemies or projectiles and hurl them using B, but there’s no real skill involved. There’s no scoring system either, which would have given things more focus and added to both the game’s appeal and lifespan. Overall, it’s underdone.

Jul 07, 2009