Mekabolt+ tells the story of a theme park technician that needs to hunt down batteries in order to repair the park’s robots that have gone haywire. With their trusty Mekabolt, the protagonist can use out-of-control robots in order to survive treacherous obstacles and obtain the batteries across the game’s 100 levels.

Mekabolt+ is a 2D puzzle platformer where players are tasked with overcoming obstacles and traps in order to collect the battery at the end of each level. Each level will take about 30 seconds to complete; depending on how many times you die trying to figure out what to do. As you progress through the game’s 100 levels, new enemies and obstacles will be introduced.

One of the interesting things here is that you don’t not kill the enemies. Shooting them will stun them allowing you to use them to successfully complete levels. Shooting them a 2nd time will un-stun them. Once stun, some enemies can be pushed to jump higher or bounces up properly. Some enemies can be used as moving platforms, bounce higher or even in later levels, teleport to an otherwise unreachable area.

While an interesting concept, the game does have a few annoying flaws. The first being sometimes you’re not able to see below meaning you have to jump blindly below hoping you don’t suffer an unnecessary death. Another nuisance is that if you want to take a chance to use enemies without stunning them, you have to time your jump pixel perfect, otherwise you’re dead. Finally, the game lasts way too long; with 100 levels across 4 chapters; if you want to do this in one sitting, while it can take 30-45 minutes, it’ll feel like hours.

Presentation-wise, the game looks shiny and colorful in all its 8-bit pixelated glory. Each chapter is unique visually speaking providing a nice and necessary change of environment given the number of levels per chapter. Each level also provides a unique challenge to overcome and no level is designed the same The soundtrack is a cutesy chiptune score that does the job but feels like a bit more effort could’ve been done because it’s easy to zone it out.

Mekabolt is a fun and addictive puzzle/platformer that will provide a reasonable challenge to players with a unique twist. While the game does feel like it overstays its welcome by about 20 levels, playing it in short bursts will make this ride a bit more enjoyable. If you’re looking for an easy puzzler to relax with and can tolerate its flaws, Mekabolt is definitely an enjoyable game.

Overall
  • 70%
    CX Score - 70%
70%

Summary

Pros

  • Unique premise
  • Addictive gameplay
  • Perfect game to play in short bursts

Cons

  • Questionable hit detection
  • Unable to see down leads to unnecessary deaths

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