Sometimes you just want to throw away any notion of complexity, plot, and emotional engagement. When the 15th JRPG of the year just doesn’t hit right, I just have to blow off some steam, explode everything on screen and do it to a banging set of tunes. Thankfully, Mighty Goose is here to saddle my woes and ease my burdens.
Metal Goose
Mighty Goose takes heavy inspiration from classic 2D side-scrolling shooters like Metal Slug. You go left to right, occasionally back to the left for a bit, and unload hot lead onto every moving thing – living or not – until you get to the end of the stage. It’s fast, it’s explosive and it’s god damn awesome – providing it’s done right of course.
Mighty Goose absolutely nails it on just about every conceivable metric. This is dumb fun done right. You play as the titular Mighty Goose, and it is up to you to travel the cosmos and riddle everything in your path with bullets as you make your way towards the nefarious big-bad of the adventure. There is very little story to be had here, and that is how I like it. You are a Samus Aran-looking bounty hunting Goose. That is all. Each mission has a reason for you to be there, but these are set dressings at best. They set up the fun, move out of the way and let the carnage begin.
Combat in Mighty Goose is incredibly simple to pick up, but has a pretty high skill ceiling. You can shoot in all the cardinal directions, you can jump and if you’re in a bind, perform a daring dodge roll – Gungeon Style. The force of your mighty armaments allows Mighty Goose to take flight temporarily by aiming at the ground whilst airborne, giving you a handy way of racking up combo points whilst staying out of arm’s reach.
Easy To Learn, Hard To Master
You start each mission with your handy, yet mostly underwhelming, pistol. This infinite ammo sidearm fires as fast as you pull the trigger and can do work if you are willing to tire your tendons out a tad. Thankfully your peashooter can be replaced with a plethora of high-powered ballistics that are all a blast to fiddle with – literally. The Machine Gun lays down a wall of lead, the Shotgun deals incredible damage up close, and the wacky Tesla Cannon eviscerates groups of enemies in an arcing flash of light. The acquisition of your arms even comes with an epic proclamation by the announcer, making it even cooler.
Mechanically, these systems would be enough to carry the game to quite the height, however, Mighty Goose goes several steps beyond. As you kill mooks you start racking up a combo; the higher the combo, the higher your Mighty Meter goes. Once it caps out, you can enter Mighty Mode. Mighty Mode sees Mighty Goose go Super Saiyan God (red hair and all), which grants almost complete invulnerability and a massive upgrade to your currently equipped weapon. The Machine Gun fires 3x as many bullets per shot and the Shotgun covers practically the entire screen, for example. If things are looking pickled, you pop this and everything dies. It even lasts longer the more you kill. It’s like a cycle of never-ending chaos.
Strewn about each level are various vehicles such as a suspiciously Metal Slug-esque tank as well as a minigun toting unicycle, Mega Man X style Ride Armour, and even a chonky jet for some aerial shenanigans. Some of these are placed along the beaten path, but oftentimes you are rewarded by exploring just a little with one of these bad boys. They drastically increase your damage output and functionally double your health. They are always fun to use and help shake things up nicely.
Quite The Challenge
Despite all of the monstrous munitions at your disposal, Mighty Goose is a hard game. Even the mightiest of geese can only take 4 hits before they turn into a Christmas Lunch, and health packs are not all that common. Enemies, however, are the real reason the game is so challenging. Each dude has a unique form of attack which requires specific tactics to overcome. Shooting at a riot shielded enemy won’t do you any good, so attacking from above would make more sense, for example. The game doesn’t make that easy either, as the sheer number of enemies on screen can reach Musou levels pretty damn quickly, and you have to rapidly factor in each enemy’s patterns and how they might interact.
It doesn’t help that the game is a cluster cluck of glorious explosions, slo-mo, and goose honking. The game is hard but light-hearted. It wants to challenge you, but also wants to make sure you are having a good time. Death is hardly a setback and if you die too many times you start getting free stuff to aid you on your way. Enemies also drop coins which can be spent on delivery services, giving you access to vehicles and weapons on the fly.
Outside of combat Mighty Goose has a few basic mechanics you can mess around with to tailor your experience. Mighty Goose doesn’t have to travel alone, which means you can have an AI or player-controlled partner tag along. These guys range from high damage dealing mechs to ammo dispensing pig-people. You can also pick from a variety of side weapons, which range from time-stopping hourglasses to Dracula-inspired pillars of flame. Finally, you can customize your armor, allowing you to mix and match various buffs. There is a lot to tinker with, but it is drip-fed throughout the campaign making it easily manageable.
Presentation
In terms of presentation, Mighty Goose is a mixture of comedic animation and style with truly superb pixel work to back it up. Every enemy has a tell, every explosion is over the top and every environment is bursting with detail. What little dialogue exists is well written and the game is littered with little easter eggs and nudges to retro gaming such as Castlevania. This is all topped off with what I can only describe as a constant barrage of 80’s action movie montage jams that fit the game perfectly. Oh, and you better believe there is frequent honking.
Verdict
Mighty Goose is the most fun I’ve had all year. It’s loud, it’s explosive, and it’s 100% awesome. The game doesn’t take that long to ‘beat’, but comes with a fantastic NG+ mode that dials that 11 all the way to 12. What few niggling issues I have with the game pale in comparison with the fun that I had with it. It’s a blast on your tod, or with a mate, so there is no excuse not to get honking.
MIGHTY GOOSE IS HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
If you would like to see more Shooters, you may be interested in our review of Ion Fury.
Many thanks go to Playism for a Nintendo Switch review code for this title.
Forged in the rainy wilds of northern England, I carved a path of mediocrity through generations and genres. My play style is often described as: “optimistically awful”.
