I find it incredible when our cultural influences are put into a work, especially when they come from people contemporary to me, because that's when we see how these influences make us different from other works from countries we're very used to. Mullet Mad Jack shows how this mixture can result in something charismatic and original.
Charismatic from the start
Mullet Mad Jack it's a game that charms, when I put the game on my computer I felt like I was in the games area of a shopping mall in the late 90s with colorful machines, full of noise just waiting for a chip to be placed.
Right away in the menu I found an unboxing option super interesting, where you can unbox the game as if it had been released for PC in one of those boxes that came with a CD-ROM, manual and various other details. The game practically won me over before I even started playing just because of this detail.
Very light Rogue
The game works with a Rogue Lite structure, but only in the sense that the game has procedural maps and a selection of upgrades that you can do at the end of each level. If you die, you go back to the beginning of the stage you were in, which I think is quite reasonable given that I'm a bit tired of this structure in so many indie games, but the way Mullet Mad Jack does it is simple and effective.
Delightful gameplay
The gameplay is definitely the icing on the cake, when I say it's frantic, try multiplying that by the fifth power, the game doesn't stop! You can feel the dopamine in your skin, the game's concept within the story, and it feels like I'm constantly on the verge of losing my hard-earned chip that I just put into that beautiful machine in the arcade at the mall.
It's very difficult to balance a shooting game in this way, in the sense that you feel rewarded at all times, that you feel in the flow of the game almost like a hypnosis, it's incredible what the people at Hammer95 have done here.
Synthwave is the business
The soundtrack goes hand in hand with the retro-futuristic look, with upbeat synthwave-style songs. In addition to the soundtrack, the sound effects are very well done and work very well with the whole game, it's a perfect marriage between visuals and music.
Charm
Visually, the game makes use of sprites for the weapons and enemies, which gives the game a "Doom" feel, but in a totally original way. As the art doesn't follow a pixel-art line but something more defined, you almost don't notice that they are sprites. The settings are very well done and as you progress they become more and more complex.
Brazil's GOTY
Mullet Mad Jack is an essential game for anyone nostalgic for frenetic arcade games. The only way I can imagine this game getting even better would be to make it work with a lightgun, but since our technology has evolved so much that we still don't have a way to reproduce a lightgun, I'm happy to play with a mouse and keyboard. Don't miss this game, it's a love letter to nostalgia and, above all, an absurd reference to our cultural potential, a national work that is already making a lot of noise abroad and I wish only the best to the guys at Hammer95, success!
Mullet Mad Jack is available on all current platforms, the review was done on the PC version
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