REVIEW -- Panzer Paladin

Panzer Paladin is a side-scrolling action platforming game developed and published by Tribute Games and released for Nintendo Switch and Microsoft Windows through Steam in July 2020. The player takes control of Flame, a rescue service android who pilots the Paladin mecha Grit, a suit of advanced sentient power armor. Together they fight and slay demonic invaders using their own weapons against them. The game draws inspiration from several NES-era titles including Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, Mega Man and Blaster Master.

SYNOPSIS

The sinister Ravenous and his legions of brutal demons are poised for battle. The situation is dire, but humanity has one final ace in the hole: the Panzer Paladin!

It's up to a rescue android named Flame to pilot the Paladin and track down all the diabolical Weapon Keepers. The showdown between the forces of the occult and the power of cutting-edge technology has begun!

Seize weapons from the demonic invaders and use your swordsmanship to slash, bash and thrust your way through 17 mind-blowing levels! Hop in your Paladin and take up arms!

Gameplay

The game consists of 17 levels, during which players take control of either the slow but powerful Paladin mech Grit or the small but swift Squire pilot Flame. When commanding Grit, the player can pick up discarded melee weapons dropped by defeated enemies and use them in battle against them. The combat mechanics include a high-versus-low attacking and blocking system (similar to Zelda II), along with a rock-paper-scissors style weapon triangle system that grants your weapons damage bonuses or reductions depending on the weapon used by the enemy.

The game also implements a weapon durability system similar to Breath of the Wild where weapons degrade and eventually break after enough uses, with some weapons being more durable than others. Every weapon has a predetermined spell within them that the player can cast at any time by breaking the weapon intentionally, ranging from recovery and defensive spells to ranged or screen-clearing attacks. Weapons can also be thrown at enemies to deal extra damage at the cost of breaking the weapon or be left at a pedestal to act as a checkpoint upon death.

Similar to Blaster Master, the player can also eject from Grit at any time to play as Flame. She is quick and able to fit through tight spaces, although she cannot pick up weapons dropped by enemies and has significantly less health than Grit. She wields a Castlevania-style laser whip that allows her to attack enemies at a distance, siphon energy from power tanks to replenish Grit's health and swing around on ring hooks to reach new areas. Teleportation pads scattered throughout each level allow for Grit to be teleported to Flame's location should the two get separated, but Flame can traverse most levels completely by herself if need be.

Stage progression is very similar to the Mega Man series, where each stage's boss is visible beforehand on the stage select screen and each stage can be selected and completed in any order you wish (with some exceptions). Between missions, the unused weapons you have acquired can be converted into Spirit Points that can be used to increase Grit's maximum health once enough are collected. The game also implements a weapon customization system known as the Blacksmith where players can draw and create their own weapons to share with other players through the internet.

Story

Characters

The story follows the exploits of Flame, a spunky, good-natured rescue service android and the pilot of her loyal Paladin mech and friend Grit, an advanced bipedal suit of sentient power armor. The pair work as operatives for Gauntlet, a peacekeeping organization dedicated to defending Earth from demonic invaders, consisting of the unnamed but reputable Director of the group, the scientist responsible for Paladin research and development Dr. Bloom and the group's timid and easily frightened technical support member Etch.

The group works together to defend against the dark prince Ravenous (a tall bird-like creature closely resembling a griffon) along with his army of demonic creatures led by the powerful Weapon Keepers, each of which bearing a resemblance to beings from myth or folklore such as the Egyptian god Anubis, the Russian apparition Baba Yaga and the Greek monster Medusa.

A stoic and enigmatic centaur-like creature known as The Horseman also appears as a seemingly neutral party, frequently challenging Flame and Grit to fights. He provides assistance to the pair on numerous occasions, although his intentions and loyalties remain mostly unclear.

Plot

A large weapon-shaped meteor falls from space to Earth, landing near Gauntlet's HQ in Canada. Demonic invaders lead by a Wendigo monster suddenly appear from within it and begin wreaking havoc. Flame and Grit arrive shortly after and chase the Wendigo deep into the complex, cornering it near their transport ship. Before the duo can engage the monster, it is swiftly killed by The Horseman who battles the two in its place. After a brief scuffle, The Horseman retreats and the pair leave the ruined facility in their transport ship, meeting up with the rest of Gauntlet soon after.

Dr. Bloom explains to the group that weapon-shaped meteorites landed in ten countries across the planet, each one acting as a transfer gateway to allow for demonic entities to invade cities across the globe. She explains briefly how a secret religious parchment foretold that spirit weapons would be crafted at a place known as the Forge and would be used to take over the planet, inciting a cosmic war. The group then receives a message from the dark prince Ravenous, ordering the planet to surrender or face destruction. Adamant in fulfilling her role as a rescue android, Flame offers to engage Ravenous' Weapon Keepers as a Squire pilot with Grit. Despite his reservations about Flame's abilities, the Director allows Flame to fight as a Squire pilot operative for Gauntlet.

Once Ravenous' final Weapon Keeper is defeated, the skies around Earth begin to darken as the planet is thrust into a perpetual state of twilight. Dr. Bloom and Grit suddenly detect a massive energy spike as The Horseman appears, opening a conduit to an Inverted Tower now orbiting the planet and the cause of the phenomenon. He asks Flame and Grit to go to the Spirit Forge within the tower and stop Ravenous, giving a cryptic warning to the pair not to follow in the footsteps of their predecessor. Initially confused, Flame dismisses The Horseman's warning and proceeds to the Inverted Tower.

Once they arrive, the pair encounter a heavily decayed and hostile Paladin mecha. After a fierce battle, Flame and Grit manage to defeat the Paladin who then forcibly ejects it's lifeless operator, a woman bearing a striking resemblance to Flame. The duo contacts the Director, who explains that the woman controlling the Paladin was the first Squire pilot Blaze who Gauntlet had lost contact with following a sabotage mission against Ravenous' forces. He reveals that Flame was built in her image and was allowed to become a Squire pilot partially in the hopes that Blaze could eventually be rescued by her. Ravenous then contacts Flame, telling her that Blaze became corrupted trying to wield his demonic weapons, a fate that all who try to ultimately share. Undeterred, Flame and Grit continue on to the Spirit Forge to confront Ravenous.

The duo make their way through the Inverted Tower, eventually reaching Ravenous' lair within the Spirit Forge. He appears and commends Flame's belligerence, offering the duo a place at his side as an ally. After refusing his offer, Flame and Grit engage Ravenous in a final battle to decide the fate of Earth. The duo eventually manage to defeat Ravenous and emerge victorious, with his demonic lance being all that remains of him following the battle. The Horseman then appears, telling the pair to think very carefully about what they do with Ravenous' weapon. How the player interacts with the weapon determines the game's ending.

If the player picks up the weapon and leaves the area with it, the bad ending plays out in which The Horseman confronts Flame, claiming that she is disrupting the spirit balance by choosing to take the weapon and is destined to be consumed by it just as Blaze was. An already possessed Flame denies this, claiming that it was Blaze's fault for being a weak human unable to control the weapon's power. The Horseman and Flame battle, although the outcome of the battle is unknown. A final scene depicts Flame and Grit standing atop their ruined transport ship before a massive army of monsters, raising up Ravenous' lance triumphantly as their new leader.

If the player refuses to pick up the weapon and leaves the area or picks it up and deliberately breaks it, the good ending plays out. With the demonic weapons destroyed and good prevailing, The Horseman appears before Flame and Grit one final time, giving another cryptic warning against humans creating any further weapons lest he return as an enemy against them. Flame retorts, saying humans are good people and don't inherently want to create weapons. The Spirit Forge then begins to crumble as the three make their escape.

Flame and Grit return safely to Earth while The Horseman uses his spirit energy to tow the Inverted Tower back to deep space. The duo is then contacted by the Director, congratulating Flame for her hard work. Just before he gives the two their next assignment, Flame refuses to join up with Gauntlet as a Squire pilot operative for the time being, desiring to do something better with herself. Returning to civilian life, Flame and Grit join a construction team and happily assist them with repairs on the cities destroyed during the invasion.

The Verdict:

When I first got my Nintendo Switch early this year (2021), my first purchase for the console was Monster Hunter: Rise, but I had my eye on Panzer Paladin the second I saw it come up in my suggestions in the eShop. I had it on my wishlist for a few months now, anxiously waiting for it to go on sale. My wish was granted when I was notified via email that the game went on sale for $9.99 (it usually retails for $19.99) while I was eating Thanksgiving dinner no less. I jumped on that and purchased it instantly and downloaded it to my console when I got home that evening. Between Shovel Knight, Cyber Shadow, Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 1 and 2, Axiom Verge 1 and 2, along with revisiting the older Metroid games in preparation for Metroid Dread back in October, I think I have played far too many video games in this year alone that been clearly inspired by the NES 8-bit era of gaming that I grew up on. Don't get me wrong though. I think that's a good thing as there's been so many of these games of this type to enjoy in modern day gaming to satisfy the tastes of a wide scope of gamers' preferences.

Gameplay

Gameplay is pretty straight-forward after the introduction stage. I highly suggest grinding that level a few times to build up a stock of weapons in Flame's inventory for use with Grit in the various stages, along with having spares to sacrifice for maxing out his health upgrades. If you can do this early on, then you're already one leg up on the game's gradual increase of difficulty. Flame and Grit can tackle all ten of the Weapon Keepers in any order, but there's not any preferred order, unlike in the Mega Man series. The World Map and Stage Selection screen would fool you otherwise, but there's not any benefits of facing one Weapon Keeper over the other. Flame and Grit acquire their weapon upon defeat, but most of those weapons offer a lot of currency for Grit's health upgrades instead of merely hanging onto them or hoarding them out for their powerful spells. Every weapon has a limited set amount of durability in battle anyway, so you can't keep them all forever even if you wanted to.

One strategy I didn't get familiar with until last tail end of the game was manually breaking weapons to unleash the spells within. Every weapon has a spell that they unleash when broken manually, such as Thunder that rains down on the heavens (VERY effective on flying/hard to hit enemies and especially on the final boss' final form), healing for recovering Grit's health, or various attack and defense up buffs. There's even a spell for a double jump too (Wing). Any and all weapon types can be thrown as well, sometimes dealing massive amounts of damage to foes. Even if the throw doesn't connect, it will bounce off a nearby wall for you can attempt the throw again so this isn't as risky a strategy as one would think. My only issue with it is that it's a very costly strategy, especially towards the end of the game when your supply of weapons isn't as plentiful as it was at the beginning of the game. I guess it contributes well to the high-risk, high-reward scheme of this game's gameplay, so I can't knock it for that too much. I personally found myself hanging onto a wealth of the spears (for healing) and longswords that had a healthy amount of range to them for I could reach foes outside of my comfort zone while limiting how close they could get to me for a counterattack. Daggers were wise to hang onto mainly for using as a sacrifice in waypoints/checkpoints for if you died in the stages.

One feature that I thought that was pretty cool was the random, player-created weapons that could be acquired by defeating The Horseman throughout his sporadic appearances throughout the various stages of the game. Players can create their own weapons within The Blacksmith bonus mode. These custom weapons can be assigned their own various stats to boot. Finished player created weapons can be shared online after uploading to the in-game network. Throughout my time with the game, the servers were down and I didn't have any sort of idea of how to go about creating anything in this mode, so I can't comment on this aspect of the game unfortunately.

As previously mentioned, this game uses a high-versus-low attacking and blocking system similar to Zelda II. I found it to be cool in most cases, but once you learn/acquire the ability to stun and counterattack foes, I found that window for the counter to be a tad too strict in most cases. When you did get it, it left foes wide open for a few seconds of a counterattack, but by the end of the game, I never found it to be a game changer as my spells and weapons with longer ranges that kept foes who would try to close in the gap out of my comfort zone away for it wouldn't even be necessary. Putrid Paladin and Ravenous (first form) were the only two bosses I felt that threw that whole high-versus-low mechanic out of the window to the point where it felt unfair on how insanely fast their reaction times were. It's sad that most players (like me) would have to exploit their AI habits to cheese the hell out of those two particular (VERY challenging) fights to trivialize them instead of fighting them as the developers have intended.

The game has 17 levels in total. The introduction stage, then ten Weapon Keepers' stages, and finally the six levels in the Inverted Tower/Spirit Forge that make-up the final stretch of the game in the same vein as Dr. Wily's Tower/Sigma's Fortress in the Mega Man series. I honestly was expecting the Inverted Tower to be like the Dr. Wily Tower in the sense that it was only going to be 4-5 levels. Boy, was I wrong.

I should mention that some players may become annoyed with the platforming in this game. It's a lot like the tropes found in NES/Classic era Mega Man games, where enemies will time attacks to spawn or hit you the moment you jump over an open pit, causing Grit/Flame to fall to their unfortunate demise. Grit has a lot of weight to his body - a lot more than what you would expect with his jumps, so it takes a bit of getting used to properly judge the distance on jumping across gaps. Grit has a pogo jump skill (performed by inputting Down + Attack) that's reminiscent to Scrooge McDuck's from the DuckTales NES games or Shovel Knight's own from his own adventure that allows Grit to get some extra elevation from bouncing off the heads of enemies, even if they block this attack. Additionally, Grit can perform an upwards thrust (performed by inputting Up + Attack) that works simultaneously as an attack to hit airborne foes while giving his jumps some additional height while performing this maneuver during any point of his jumping animation. Grit has a trusty back dash that can be used to give you some more speed if you're looking for an extra nudge in the right direction, but just keep in mind that you have to have his back facing the direction that you're looking to go before activating it. Otherwise, Grit's back dash is mostly used defensively in close quarters combat to react to an enemy counterattack.

Flame has a whip that allows her to swing across gaps, Bionic Commando-style if she connects it to hooks scattered throughout some of the stages, but she instantly dies whenever she comes in contact with spikes on the ground. This game treats her like a glass cannon in the same vein as the pilot in Blaster Master. She can actually stand up to most of the game's bosses on her own with a little work, but you're going to deal out the most damage possible while piloting Grit if you're looking to get the most bang for your buck offensively. Her platforming ability isn't as tricky as Grit's at times, but those sections of the game where it's painfully obvious where the game wants you to eject out of Grit to explore with her are tense as you have no idea what you're going to run into while you're exposed and vulnerable outside of your trusty mech. Fortunately, those sections of the game aren't too lengthy (except for 1-2 in the Inverted Tower depending on what route you decide to take) and you're able to return to Grit in no time.

Music

Panzer Paladin definitely has some great music that suits the style and gameplay that this game was clearly influenced by. I was personally fond of the Stage Selection theme (linked above) that I would just allow to play on a loop while I allowed the game to idle out between completed stages. That wasn't the only good track in this game as I thought the entire soundtrack was great from start to finish.

Story & Visual Presentation

In terms of story and visual presentation, I loved the obvious mecha/giant robot anime influences from the character designs for Grit, Flame, and their supporting cast in the Gauntlet organization - as well as the villains led by Ravenous. Flame shows off a lot of spunk and charisma (much like her namesake) in her personality from the little that we are given in the few cutscenes that drive the game's story forward. Flame's banter always made me crack a smile reading her dialogue as she interacts with other characters.

I loved the graphics for stage intros and the game over screens a lot. Too bad the bosses didn't get that same level of treatment. I was expecting each of the Weapon Keepers to have an introduction like the Robot Masters and/or Mavericks from the Mega Man series.

While I was left wanting more from the bare bones, straight-to-the-point story, I did appreciate that there's not one but two different endings, so that counts for something.

Fan Art & Merchandise

Play It or Don't Bother?

Much like it's roots in retro gaming that it was influenced and inspired by, Panzer Paladin makes for a fun, yet challenging adventure. While I can humbly recommend my fellow gamers giving this a shot, especially if they were fans of Blaster Master, Mega Man, and Zelda II from the NES era of gaming, I would be doing this review a disservice if I didn't mention that this game is pretty darn short. There's 17 stages total, making it longer than your typical Mega Man game, but at the same time, it goes by pretty darn fast. On the plus side, there's some replayability if you wish to create your own custom weapons and want to see the two different endings to the adventure. A time attack and speed runner mode(s) have been added in a recent update, so there's also that if you want to get more bang for your buck. I bought the game on sale for $9.99 on the Nintendo eShop; otherwise, it typically retails full price at $19.99. For a game like this, I honestly can't see paying more than $9.99 to $14.99, especially when there's not much more content to keep you busy when there's other games like Shovel Knight that has a wealth of additional content.