REVIEW / Mustache in Hell (PS4)

I grew up in the 90s and as such remember that period of gaming well. As a SEGA kid, I moved from the Master System to the Mega Drive and then onto the Dreamcast. As such I had the fortune of seeing gaming come leaps and bounds from the 8-bit to the 16 and finally 32-bit generations. This meant that in ten years I saw huge changes in what these consoles were capable of. This is something that I don’t think you can see as starkly in our systems today. This also means that I remember what made a good 16-bit game good and what the flaws were. This is important because Mustache in Hell, the game we’ll be looking at today would have been very at home on the Mega Drive (Genesis for the rest of you.) The question is, however, as to whether this is a faithful homage to a time gone by or something possibly better left in the past?

I’ve been playing the PS4 version of Mustache in Hell and this is a game that’s probably best described as a twin-stick shooter but without all of the nuance that makes that genre really special. We’re going back to a time when we didn’t even have thumb pads so the concept feels a little bit out of place in a title that’s taking a retro approach. Let’s call this more of a shooter with twin-stick controls. I’m splitting hairs but I feel it’s important in this instance.

Mustache in Hell is a reasonably fun game but fittingly for the 16-bit era when cartridge sizes weren’t very big, there isn’t a huge amount to it. You take on the role of John Mustache. You’ve just met your untimely end but because you can handle yourself and Death has a problem you’re tasked with traversing the layers of hell in an attempt to collect magical cubes, each of which is guarded by a boss. This slightly silly premise isn’t a problem, it adds a certain light-heartedness to what could otherwise be quite a dark game. The issue is everything else.

There are about five levels that you’ll play through in Mustache in Hell, each representing one of Hell’s fiendish layers. The first level could be classed as more of a tutorial and I finished this in about half an hour. Again, this in and of itself is fine. The problem is that this level makes up 20% of the entire game, so you’re shortening your overall playtime by quite a bit from the off. In fact, it was the third boss that killed me on my first proper playthrough. I never did like spiders. After this I didn’t really feel much of a pull to keep going and there are several reasons for this.

The stages in Mustache in Hell are basically mazes with interconnecting rooms. Many of these rooms are arenas where you’ll keep getting mobbed by baddies until you kill enough or complete a certain task. Once done you pick up a key and are on your way. The issue is that there’s nothing in between. You can walk around as much as you like but you’ll only trigger a battle if you step into one of these spaces. Once you’ve cleared a room it’s clear meaning you’ll only have to face so many battles per level. The levels feel really short so a decent shooter fan will burn through one in about 15 to 20 minutes. Once you’ve completed the level you have the boss room, grab your cube and are done. There are secrets to find and these hidden rooms are useful if you can because they contain health and lives but because the levels are a bit bland you feel more of an urge to just battle through rather than start hunting for things.

The graphics in Mustache in Hell are about as simple as you can get. Even if we’re assuming we’re going for a retro feel and bearing that in mind they still feel overly basic. After the colorful but simply drawn enemies, the stage feels big and empty with the odd crate, statue, or trap in it but that’s about it. These traps only trigger during combat so they’re just added fluff when you’re done. The music while you’re fighting is decent enough but the sound effects get annoying really quickly. Aside from this, all you’ll hear are John’s footsteps as he wanders around the place. I don’t have a problem with things being done simply but this feels basic and empty and there’s a subtle difference there.

The controls are simple but can feel a bit fiddly at times. As expected, you get mobbed by enemies, and you find yourself moving in circles, but the collision detection on the crates you need to pick up so you can grab weapons is pretty poor. I spent more time just missing these crates than I did collecting weapons and this gets frustrating when you might need to circle a large arena to get back to where you need to be because there are monsters in your way. On the other side of it, you can’t pass through a mob of monsters you’ll just get stuck and sit there draining health. This means getting backed into a corner is a really dangerous prospect because it’s difficult to strafe out of the way.

The weapons you pick up consist of a main weapon and an explosive. This is fine but there’s not a lot of choice. In the first three zones, I found a machine gun, shotgun, and flamethrower. The secondaries are grenades and mines. I would have liked a bit more of an arsenal to explore and the weapons while clearly different weren’t different enough to alter my play style. After this, you’ll pick up keys, lives, and health. There are some secrets to collect, but that’s it.

All in all, I can see what Mustache in Hell is trying to accomplish but there isn’t enough there to make for anything more than a small burst of fun. This is the sort of thing that you might pick up for twenty minutes at a time but I can’t see this title pulling anyone in for long periods. Once a decent shooter player has figured out the game loop, which isn’t hard, this is going to be a fairly short and easy title to complete. After that, apart from maybe going secret hunting, I don’t see this being a title I’d keep playing for long. One plus point is that this title is only £3.99 on the PlayStation Store. For the sum total of 4 quid, you aren’t going to be expecting miracles but it doesn’t stop this title from being short-lasting fun.