Duck Souls+ Review – Dark Souls, Schmark Schmouls.

Duck Souls+ is a fast-paced, action platformer centered around a duck who likens himself to Rambo. But what sets this platformer apart from the many others available on the Nintendo Switch, if anything? Well, let’s have a look.

Gameplay

Sadly, there is no story or plot to follow in Duck Souls+ other than a couple of sentences as the beginning of the game which means the gameplay needs to be something special to keep players, well, playing. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the case. The gameplay is fairly generic. Get from point A to point B with some obstacles to avoid that will kill you – die and restart. We’ve all seen it many times before.

The game’s title is very similar to that of Dark Souls – which I believe was the point. Dark Souls is renowned for being difficult and you’re expected to die, a lot. The same can be said about Duck Souls+, you will die and it will make you angry.

There are 100 hand-crafted levels to master with over 20 different traps to stop you in your path. One of the things I did enjoy about Duck Souls+ (other than the duck) is how fast-paced the levels are. Some levels you will complete first time, sometimes in a matter of seconds, but even on the levels, you find yourself stuck on, dying over and over again, these will still take a matter of minutes to complete. Of course, the negative to this is how quickly you will finish the game. It is incredibly short and although there is more than one difficulty level, I didn’t feel the need to jump back in.

So, there is a Casual mode and Hardcore mode. Obviously, Hardcore mode is the more punishing game mode – more and faster traps to avoid. Casual mode is still pretty difficult though and the annoying thing is, there’s no benefit to playing Hardcore mode. No real reward.

The duck you control is adorable and it’s almost a shame that you have to kill them over and over again…. you are able to unlock various little hats for them to wear though which is adorable, but that is pretty much the only form of unlockable in the game.

Audio

I can’t say the game’s soundtrack is anything to shout about really, it’s fairly generic and after so many times of dying on the same level, can get very annoying. Although you will hear variations of the same tune, it will begin to feel like exactly the same tune all the way through the game.

Sound effects only really come in the form of jumping and rolling – again, very generic sounds and I must admit, the jumping sound really began to grate on me the more I played…

Visuals & Performance

I’m a big fan of pixelated art – in fact, I love it. But, I must say, I didn’t enjoy Duck Souls+ art style at all really. If anything, it hurt my eyes. I pretty much needed to squint in order to make out any details through the levels which is a shame, because this is the area where the game could’ve really shined.

One good thing I can say about Duck Souls+ is that I encountered no problems in gameplay whilst playing the game. The game ran smoothly both in docked and handheld mode.

Value

Duck Souls+ is priced at £4.99 in the UK, $4.99 in the US and 4,99 in Europe. So, a relatively cheap price but is it worth it? Unfortunately, I would say probably not. Yes, it does what it says on the tin but there are so many other platformers on the Nintendo Switch that offer so much more.

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Duck Souls+ Review provided by SwitchWatch.co.uk
Developer: Ratalaika Games
Release Date: March 27th, 2020
Price: £4.99, $4.99, 4.99
Game Size: 54.0MB