RetroRealms Arcade Double Feature: Halloween & Ash vs Evil Dead | Review

RetroRealms Double Feature – Halloween & Ash vs. the Evil Dead attempts to throw us back to the 16-bit era of gaming. In what appears to be the start of a new line of shorter titles, accessed via arcade machines inside a spooky building, you’ll murder your way through dozens of repetitive levels. Great-looking pixel art can’t save what is otherwise a bland experience. A solid amount of replayability is further let down by what you are replaying not being all that enjoyable.  Still, people love their horror and this game loves its source material.

Halloween

When you boot up the game you’ll be in a 3D environment with two arcade machines available.  On the right is Halloween, featuring the inside-out Shattner’d mask himself, Michael Myers. A twist for this title is that you can play through the same levels as Jamie Lee Curtis’ character, Lauri Strode. The main campaign is Michael’s and it will see you knifing your way through a dozen or so levels inspired by the franchise. Lauri is the best character in the game because she can double jump.

This is your basic 2D action platformer.  Michael can swing his knife, unlock various moves to swing it in cooler-looking ways, and gain level-dependent ranged abilities if he kills “innocent” characters before they can jump off-screen. The story premise is the same across all eight campaigns, with a powerful demon having taken over both the Halloween and Ash worlds, and leaving behind an eye that lets you shift between them.

In the real world, you’ll see mostly human enemies for Michaelto kill.  With a press of the B button, you can enter into the demonic realm for a short period, where plenty of creepy demons are waiting to wreck your shit. This title is old school in that once you lose all your hearts you go back to the last checkpoint, of which there are two to three per level.  The first is literally at the start, the second is halfway through, and on boss levels, you can checkpoint just before that final fight. 

It’s frustrating because the game loves employing off-screen ranged attacks and frenzied running enemies that the controls can’t handle well. Michael gets the coolest-looking move set, tied to collecting currency throughout each level.  You are encouraged to replay them to get all the per-character special items (pumpkins for Michael). These give you an extra score at the end of each stage, which gives you more currency for powering up said character.

Ash vs. the Evil Dead

This campaign sees a new set of levels featuring Ash and Kelly (from the TV show this game is named after). Ash has his chainsaw arm and double-barreled shotgun. Like with Michael you’ll use x to quick attack, hold it for a powered-up move (shotgun here), and get various ranged weaponry throughout each stage. Kelly uses a meat tenderizer for melee and her power-up X is an assault rifle.

It’s a similar plot device here, with the Overlord demon taunting Ash to fight for him, and you’ll go through various levels inspired by the Evil Dead franchise. Kelly’s story is set after Ash’s and sees her going through the same levels, as Lauri and Michael. The twist is that every character has a campaign (of sorts) in each game. That means eight total campaigns to run through and your characters need to be powered up over and over again in each.

You’ll get a ton of replayability out of the title if you’re into the gameplay and settings. I didn’t enjoy having to re-grind out each character across both franchises and would have liked it if my nearly fully unlocked Michael came over to the Evil Dead world, but you might. No matter the character or the game, outside of Lauri and her double jump I did not enjoy the gameplay enough to want to grind things out. You’re too stiff compared to the speed your enemies have, in classic 16-bit style. It’s balls hard without a real benefit from it.

The Vibes

RetroRealms has made some very pretty sprites for these games. For all my issues with the gameplay, it’s quite good-looking. It’s that level of sprite that reminds us of SEGA and Nintendo’s old systems, but so full of color and depth that it would never have worked there.  Alongside the great looks are some excellent Chiptunes songs. The Halloween theme being one of horror’s more iconic sets it above the Evil Dead side of things.

I spent far too long on the menus while playing in the Evil Dead campaign (four times…) because it sounds so good. There isn’t any voice acting, in keeping with the nature of those old titles. There’s a fun bit of nostalgia when you load up each arcade machine and see the demo looping around, enticing you to drop your quarters into it.

I didn’t run into any major bugs, thankfully. It was a solid overall experience only hampered by my lack of enjoyment for the length of its campaigns. They’re not super long, but the gameplay grew stale quickly enough that I wished they were either shorter or let me carry upgrades between them.

Wrapping Things Up

RetroRealms Double Feature – Halloween and Ash vs the Evil Dead is a long title for a surprisingly long game. It looks beautiful and has some great midi-style music, but is let down by a gameplay loop that simply doesn’t hold up. At $25 per title, it’s also a big ask monetarily if you want to see all eight campaigns.

RetroRealms Arcade - Double Feature: Halloween & Ash vs the Evil Dead

Played on

Xbox Series X

PROS

• Looks great
• Solid music
• Lots of content

CONS

• Stiff controls
• Lack of checkpoints
• Grind heavy

6.0 out of 10

OKAY

XboxEra Scoring Policy

Developer

Wayforward Technologies

Publisher

Boss Team Games

Price

$24.99 for each title

See on the Xbox Store