WOLFSTRIDE

Still, finding real diamonds in a pile … in the basements of Steam is already akin to a drug for me. The next dose was Wolfstride – a game that mixes noir, notes of anime about big robots and a comedy that is on the verge of decency.

Player cover
Very… EEEEE… fun company
Wolfstride tells how three buddies try to earn and rise by participating in battles of large combat robots. They strive to win the biggest tournament called “Ultimate Golden God” (there are more than three hundred contenders in the ranking) in order to hit a big cash jackpot.

One of them is an upright dog named Dookie, who acts as a mechanic. The other is Knife, nicknamed Pineapple, who is the pilot of the huge Cowboy robot. And we play as Shade, a former yakuza who in this trio is responsible for producing, settling organizational issues and finding money for repairs, treatment and other ongoing expenses.

Humans and anthropomorphic animals get along well here. Although it is not without problems.
Soon they are joined by a funny little swearing robot “Pipika”, who trains the pilot. He loves to swear, but the built-in program swears, so his speech goes something like this: “I… PIIIIP… will make of you… PIIIIP… such and such real… PIIIMP… champions!”

Our heroes had a boring past.
Different shades of mood
In general, one gets the impression that the Wolfstride script was written by a drug addict, a swearword and a poet all rolled into one. Because, on the one hand, they swear really often here (especially Dookie), shit is mentioned through the word and in general a lot of toilet humor. And yet, this is much more meaningful, the truth of life and even, if you like, romance than in any Russian quest. Here this is not an end in itself, but only a consequence of the difficult situation in which our heroes found themselves – and self-defense from it.

An exhaustive quote for many situations in the game.
On the other hand, there are many memories in the story about the difficult past of the heroes, about what tied them together, about the love that Shade suffered from. And his 14-year-old daughter Neb soon comes to him, which at first makes him want to run away and get drunk, but then organically joins the team. And here, toilet humor is replaced by real noir romance, which gives meaning to the overall black and white palette of the game and works perfectly for the atmosphere.

But our Shade is a real poet!
This very atmosphere is made even more colorful by the presence of the former sensei, the teacher of Shade, who acts as …. a pineapple. It’s hard to describe something here – see for yourself:

Why pineapple? Because not apples!
The teacher asks to collect pineapples and distribute them to friends – each donated increases the character’s disposition towards us, which ultimately allows you to receive various rewards, money and equipment for the robot.

Add to this a cat witch who helps with the upgrade of Cowboy, a goose – a street musician, a barmaid who immediately determines the client’s character by his favorite drink (she calls Shade Rum-Cola) and everything like that – in the end it turns out very tart, unusual, but heady and tasty cocktail, in which, of course, notes of smoky cigarette noir are the soloist.

And there are a lot of references to the games.
Genres are also different.
The gameplay itself is also a cocktail of various directions. Direct battles take place in separate arenas and look like this:

Reminds me of Japanese games.
That is, these are separate arenas, the choice of movement points, techniques and places where to hit. It is also allowed to defend to replenish ammo or place a block. Opponents can destroy each other’s hands, body, head, but when the necessary scale is accumulated, we are given all this to repair or even restore entire fragments. In addition, there are combat stances that add bonuses to attack when building up “fighting spirit”.

In principle, the combat system is not outstanding, but quite efficient. The main thing here is to carefully listen to the information about the tactics of the next enemy and choose the right combat and defensive skills. It happens that we are immediately told that long-range attacks are better suited here.

Periodically, this colossus has to be repaired manually and for money.
You can buy new tricks from Pipika, and to learn new stances, you must first purchase at a video store and watch some old movie about martial arts – it seems to be a trifle, under which a banal upgrade is hidden, but how you immediately get nostalgic! And from the cat witch we buy equipment for the arms, body, engine and head of the robot – there is a wide choice, including frames, plates, skin, core, central processing unit, engine, and so on.