Horror movie icons have been appearing in video games for decades, with one of the earliest examples being Halloween on the Atari. Nowadays, fans are used to seeing horror movie villains in asymmetrical multiplayer games like Dead by Daylight and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, as well as fighting games like Mortal Kombat. RetroRealms Arcade offers horror movie fans something a little different, transforming iconic horror characters into side-scrolling versions of themselves as they complete platforming levels reminiscent of games from the SNES and Genesis era. RetroRealms Arcade is a unique concept for sure, but it's held back by a number of unfortunate choices.
RetroRealms Arcade is essentially a hub for two distinct games. One is based on Ash vs. Evil Dead, the comedy horror series that aired on Starz from 2015 to 2018, and the other is inspired by the Halloween franchise. In Ash vs. Evil Dead, players take on the role of hero Ash Williams, while Halloween focuses on Michael Myers. Both characters are put into action by a demonic creature known as the Overlord, who steals the Necronomicon from Ash and strings Michael along with his sister's gravestone.
The levels consist of fairly standard action-platforming fare, with players avoiding hazards, jumping over obstacles, and killing everything in sight. Where RetroRealms Arcade differs from some of its inspirations is that the characters have deeper move-sets than one might realize at first glance, with players able to further upgrade Ash and Michael at a store between levels. RetroRealms' upgrades make a huge difference as the games go on, so players are highly incentivized to explore every nook and cranny of each stage.
Besides currency, RetroRealms Arcade features other collectibles for players to hunt down. Some of these are specific to each game, with Ash vs. Evil Dead stages requiring players to collect pages of the Necronomicon, and Halloween tasking players with collecting Jack-o'-Lanterns. Tickets are a universal collectible and also the most interesting on offer. With tickets, players can purchase memorabilia from Ash vs. Evil Dead and Halloween in a museum that exists in the back of the game's overworld arcade.
Horror Buffs Will Want to Visit the RetroRealms Arcade Museum
While Ash vs. Evil Dead and Halloween are 16-bit-style action platformers, the titular arcade is presented as a 3D environment that players explore from a first-person perspective. The arcade has retro carpet and looks sufficiently creepy. Ash vs. Evil Dead and Halloween are accessed through arcade cabinets on either side of the main hallway, mocked-up with snazzy artwork that replicates the look of real-life arcade cabinets. But while the actual games are the main draw, there are other interesting things for players to see in the arcade.
To the right of the entrance is a TV with a shelf full of VHS tapes that serve as the game's bonus features section, and beyond the hallway with the cabinets is a room that gets filled with dioramas as players complete stages. The museum is the next room over, with players able to spend their tickets on cool collectibles like Michael's Halloween costume from the night he murdered his sister at the beginning of the first movie. Horror buffs will have fun filling out the museum and seeing all the cool throwbacks. Between the tickets and the upgrades, RetroRealms Arcade definitely encourages players to replay levels and make sure that they have found everything there is to find.
It's a good thing, too, because the game doesn't offer that much content. It's mostly fun while it lasts, but each game only has five worlds consisting of two levels each that can be completed in about an hour, maybe two or three for 100% completion. This isn't that bad in and of itself, but the fact that each game costs $24.99 is enough to make even the most diehard horror fans immediately dismiss RetroRealms Arcade.
RetroRealms Arcade is short, but to its credit, it has some tricks up its sleeve to give its two games more replay value. It's stuffed with achievements, with 74 to unlock in the Steam version, plus there are the aforementioned collectibles to hunt down. What offers the game the most replay value is the fact that players can mix and match characters. So, if someone decides to spend $50 and buy both games, they will be able to play through the Ash vs. Evil Dead levels as Halloween's Michael Myers and vice versa. The story plays out differently when players do this, but the boss fights and level design basically stay the same.
RetroRealms Arcade's Mix-and-Match Concept is Interesting, But Also a Missed Opportunity
I like this idea, and it does add more replay value to what would otherwise be super short platforming experiences. But one massive missed opportunity here is that players can't take their upgraded characters into the other games. So, after beating the Ash vs. Evil Dead cabinet and spending all that money upgrading Ash, players have to start from scratch if they want to take him into Halloween and fight the Overlord's minions in Haddonfield. This is really disappointing and keeps the upgrade system from reaching its full potential, especially since the games are so short.
If RetroRealms' gameplay was extraordinary, I could almost forgive the value vs. Price discrepancy, but what's here is nothing groundbreaking. The levels are mostly fun, with a few challenging platforming sections and clever boss fights, but both Ash vs. Evil Dead and Halloween suffer from massive difficulty spikes at the end. There are some cool ideas, like the ability to switch between the "real world" and the nightmare realm to reach otherwise inaccessible areas, but it's all very basic. RetroRealms gameplay is competent and can be entertaining, but it doesn't do anything revolutionary to justify its high price point.
Unfortunately, the RetroRealms Arcade pricing structure gets even worse when taking the extra characters into account. I don't have specific pricing information, but bonus characters like Halloween heroine Laurie Strode cost extra. For $49.99, players should be entitled to everything that the Ash vs. Evil Dead and Halloween experiences have to offer, especially when one considers how short each game is. So, even though RetroRealms Arcade can be a fun action platformer at times and has amusing references for horror buffs, its pricing scheme makes it impossible to recommend.
RetroRealms Arcade
- Released
- October 18, 2024
- Developer(s)
- WayForward Technologies
- Publisher(s)
- Boss Team Games
- Engine
- Unreal Engine 5
- Steam Deck Compatibility
- Unknown
WHERE TO PLAY
- Competent action platformer gameplay
- Cool museum concept with neat unlockables
- Being able to mix and match characters and games is an interesting concept
- Extremely short
- Wildly overpriced
- Bonus characters sold separately as DLC
- Annoying difficulty spikes
- Upgraded characters are trapped in their respective save files
RetroRealms Arcade launches October 18 for PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X. The Best War Games was provided with a Steam code for this review.