Explosionade DX Review

Explosionade DX puts players in control of an experimental mech to defend the guard depot. While your friends have decided to the Horronym Fortress, your boss, Colonel Bouche is relying on you to guard and protect the depot from alien threats.

Explosionade DX is a side-scrolling action platformer where players can shoot bullets and bombs in order to take care of incoming aliens and destroying blocked path. Your mech can also jump when you press the A button, but can also hover and jump higher when holding down the jump button. The game also lets you either shoot via a face button or the right joystick for a twin-stick experience.

You can also generate a temporary shield to protect yourself from enemies and their projectiles. But the shield also has another usage: bouncing. Some levels will have high to reach areas where even high jumping can’t reach a platform. When you perform a jump and triggering the shield before you land, it’ll allow you to bounce and reach previously unreachable platforms.

You’ll also collect gold nuggets that will allow you to upgrade your mech where you can trade it your current gear for stronger firepower… but it’s not found anywhere?. Once you pick up 10 loots of gold you’re rewarded with 30 seconds of Meganade Cascade where you can go nuts with unlimited grenades. You can also zoom in or out of the action with a simply Y button press.

The game looks great; it has a Metal Slug styling to it. Most areas are colored with a darker, greenish color palette while the enemies are most varied in colors making it easy to differentiate enemies from the background. The soundtrack is fine; generic hard rock stuff that sounds more like stock music than anything else.

There isn’t anything inherently wrong here, but one minor nuisance is the level length. Each area can be cleared in about 2-3 minutes; meaning it’s difficult to fully enjoy the experience enjoy blasting the aliens to bits. The other problem is that throughout the game, there’s no indication of a shop to upgrade your mech. You’ll often see hints of upgrading your mech, but as I’ve gone through the 60 levels, never was I brought in to a shop nor was there an option for it anywhere.

Explosionade DX is a fun, interesting, albeit short, action platformer. There’s a handful of difficulty settings to challenge yourself with, there’s a practice mode where you can challenge tougher levels until you master them. It’s a nice palette cleanser in between AAA games. If you’re looking for a short challenge to distract you, you can do a lot worst than Explosionade DX.