Axe Cop Review

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Baconlabs
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Axe Cop Review

Post by Baconlabs »

This game was entered into the 2020 Heart of the OHR contest, where it won 1st Place.

Axe Cop is... many things. A webcomic. A cartoon. A twinkle in a child's eye. A doorway to the unbridled imagination. The poster child for a certain page on TV Tropes.
But most importantly, it is a good game, a VERY good game. Where do I even begin to describe it all? The characters are all over-the-top and insane, never what you'd expect, ever-changing. The maps pack as much variety to them as an ensemble of Zelda dungeons. The battles are streamlined to emphasize spectacle and puzzle-solving. The plot keeps catching me off guard and making me snort. Fruit is a vital resource for your most powerful moves. Your transportation from the main hub to each zone is a chain gun-armed tyrannosaur.

There's really no proper way to describe the experience without experiencing it yourself. You might be able to find some ground to stand on by reading the webcomic source material, to which this game owes its ludicrous premise and about half of its best one-liners. But that still won't prepare you for all the twists and turns this adaptation takes. It's just a massive roller coaster, and no matter how nauseous you might think you'll get, it's so worth the price of admission.

I'll back up a bit and address the more mundane things Axe Cop does well. For an RPG, it hits a lot of solid design philosophies square on the head. World maps too tedious for you? Have a mission select screen a la Mega Man. Overrun by random battles? Now there's NPCs on the map that you can either avoid or destroy, the latter causing other enemies to pee their pants and not even bother showing up on-screen for a while. Character stats and level-ups starting to lose their edge? Now the power is in your hands as you customize every level-up and get rewards for meeting stat thresholds with certain characters. Want something else to do between battles? Now every good guy has a unique skill they can use on the map to advance your progress or hunt for secrets, very reminiscent of Paper Mario partners or Legend of Zelda tools. Oh, and perhaps the most underrated feature: you can break into a sprint anywhere with a running start, and keep it going for as long as you can make tight turns and avoid enemies. You can even leap over massive gaps with this ability, and it really breathes some fresh air into exploration.

I seriously cannot stop thinking of good things to say about this game. In the interest of keeping things brief, I'll just add that whatever flaws there are, are likely stylistic in nature. If the limited color count, chiptune soundtrack, and childish subject matter are a detriment to your experience, well, maybe you're the one that has a problem. I can proudly say that I find no major flaws with this game and can't wait to get back into it. I mean, seriously. If "police man wielding firefighter axe on top of chain gun dinosaur in a volcano, killing other dinosaurs" doesn't sell it for you, then I don't know what will.

Time Invested: 2 Hours, 24 Minutes
Rating: 10/10
Accolade: CRAZY AWESOME
Attachments
CRAZY AWESOME: Doesn't make sense, doesn't matter, it's all in service of pure fun.
CRAZY AWESOME: Doesn't make sense, doesn't matter, it's all in service of pure fun.
01 AXE COP.png (132.65 KiB) Viewed 6695 times
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axe2.png (82.45 KiB) Viewed 6695 times
axe1.png
axe1.png (88.09 KiB) Viewed 6695 times
axe3.png
axe3.png (50.39 KiB) Viewed 6695 times
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