Part of the charm of the indie market is the spirit of people working with the resources they have to make the best game they can. While this is inspirational, that doesn’t excuse small-scale titles from needing to be interesting and exciting though. Twin-stick shooting is a genre the Switch has very good representation in, with a variety of budget titles that are typically well-made. This already made for quite a hill for State of Anarchy to climb in order to make a serious impression, but given its issues with pacing and a general lack of variety it comes out as more novel than noteworthy.
Since there’s not really a story or plot to speak of what little you’ll need to know is that you’ll be shooting from a top-down view on foot, in a few vehicles, and in space ships, whether in a town, a bank, or on alien planets. Almost all levels will end with you taking on at least a marginally more formidable for, and there will be some boss battles along the way as well. For the most part the action is completely straightforward, you’ll have your primary gun and your secondary gun, and that’s it. Every level one of these weapons will be switched out for something new, and while they’ll generally get more powerful that isn’t to say newer is better.
The challenge of making due with what you get (there’s no ability to change weapons aside from alternating from the 2 you currently possess) I suppose helps to keep up some variety. However, once you’ve gone through the first 10 levels or so you’ve seen roughly all of the major variations there are available… details and degree of difficulty will just keep rising. The same can be said for changing from Normal difficulty to Hard, it’s all roughly the same, just you’ll have to work a little harder.
Aside from there not really being much sustained variety your movement really feels sluggish. You’ll be able to choose to upgrade your speed but everything in the game simply feels a bit slow. Since the majority of spaces are pretty wide open and the AI is pretty well devoid of any instinct other than to converge and attack there’s also very little use for strategy or tactics, simply strafing and keeping on the move will solve almost any problem. This isn’t to say its outright easy, at some point you will end up dying, just there really isn’t any spark of excitement here. It’s all very run-of-the-mill at best.
While the art style, quirky self-made sound effects, and bits of weirdness I suppose give it a little bit of odd charm for the title being State of Anarchy it’s a pretty vanilla and methodical experience. Given the fact that the Switch is hardly starved for exciting games, including ones at a comparable price, in this genre the flaws with this title are difficult not to be painfully aware of. If you’ve burned through the other options on the console already perhaps it would be worth picking up but on the whole a more appropriate subtitle for this game would be Master of “Meh”.
Score: 5
Pros:
- New guns every level at least force a difference in play between levels
- Vehicles and flying a spaceship periodically change things up, though over time even the variations all feel the same
- The sketch-like art style and most sound effects being made by a person’s mouth give it a quirky charm
Cons:
- Once you’ve cycled through the first 10 levels or so you’ve seen pretty well everything there is, just you’ll face slightly different and tougher enemies
- Being locked into using a specific primary and secondary gun per level, with no pick-ups or ability to choose which ones you prefer, just isn’t very fun depending on what you’re stuck with
- This is a genre space already crowded with far better titles on Switch