Mighty Goose

 After reviewing Untitled Goose Game for April Fools day, I wanted to see if there were any more goose based gaming adventures. Surely enough there was, on Xbox Game Pass! A game that was like contra, with some fun bonuses, and the ability.. to honk on command, very aggressively. Time to dive in for a quick look if you should install Mighty Goose, and if you have other consoles it is available on those as well, Switch, PlayStation, and Steam.

This game has a simple narrative, goose bounty hunter takes on evil galactic empire, and that is the plot. There are some stages to go through, a little bit of dialogue here and there and some things to do after the credits roll. The game took me about three hours to beat and I tackled the main story only for this review. The music did not really stand out to me, but the sprite work was really good, the game looks fantastic.

In this game you roll, use a variety of weapons and vehicles, jump and go from stage to stage, and of course aggressively honk every now and then. Enemies drop a variety of weapons to use, and there are optional vehicles located in parts of some stages, and sometimes dedicated vehicle sections. Aside from picking up health you can also pick up coins to order weapons and vehicles on demand through the pause screen. 

As you take on enimies and bosses you will fill the mighty meter, once activated you will become invulnerable for a short time and your fire power increases. As I played through the game, I found it reminding me of the Contra series and the indie games I covered that were inspired by it last year. This game is more forgiving then Contra, having plenty of checkpoints, infinite lives, weapons on demand, and a health bar with pick ups instead of dying in one hit. 

I found this game short yet very fun. Like most retro and arcade experiences I found myself at the credits in no time, but I enjoyed my time. This game was pretty fun and had plenty of check points and health drops. The health drops even came during boss fights and the final boss which was nice, still being fun challenges without too much frustration. There are also perks you can unlock and equip thought the game like better defense, or filling your might meter more quickly and so on, you can only pick so many so they are a nice addition without breaking the game. The boss fights are fun with plenty of challenge, there are checkpoints before them, and with health pick ups and more they are not impossible. There is some trial and error involved but the fights are not that long so you will be memorizing patterns and avoiding attacks, eventually quelling the boss in no time flat.

This is definitely worth a try on gamepass, but if you wanted to play this on another console, I would say this game would be better even at five dollars less. There is more content awaiting the player beyond the initial story and then some which is nice, but it is more of a retread with challenges, thus why I did not dedicate that much time to it. This game is super fun and even has co-op, and it is so short that I definitely would revisit it sometime. This is a good game that is well balanced, has optional challenge and is a blast to play. If you find it on sale or have gamepass, definitely give it a try.

Overall Thoughts: Short But Fun, fun gameplay, well balanced, fun bosses, music is not that memorable, great look.