I’ll admit that the last time I tried out the Angry Video Game Nerd series I walked away less than impressed overall. I don’t think I was convinced that its overall gameplay and design felt distinctive enough to make an impression, and the generally juvenile and extensive use of profanity wore on my nerves quickly. It isn’t that I mind foul language when it feels somehow natural, but when it just seems to be a bit, or pushes the f-bomb button too much just for the sake of doing it, I find my patience runs thin pretty quickly. 

With this new release I can’t say that its opening didn’t make me cringe with a bit of embarrassment at its pained and forced antics, but at least once I began playing the game I could at least better see the legacy that it’s trying to honor this time around. You’ll be given a Mega Man-esque set of stages to choose from, able to opt to tackle them in any order you like. To the game’s credit, the platform shooting generally does feel pretty in line with contemporaries from back in the day, but with some branching paths to choose from (which feel like they can make the difficulty vary somewhat wildly), it also has more modern touches.

Outside of the humor that I’ll still argue is a bit tired (though I’m sure enjoyable to long-time fans), the issues I had were more with there being quite a lot of optional challenges sitting around where it doesn’t feel like you’re given a sufficient reward for tackling them. It’s nice that people with different tolerances for pain can try to pick easier routes, but given that there’s nothing in-game to really help you decide which ways to go, not knowing what may be ahead of you, the design is more of a head scratcher. On the flipside, challenge hounds shouldn’t necessarily have to endure simpler routes when all they’re looking for is something to make them want to throw their controller around.

I do think that with some mild tweaks this could be a game that would better serve its audience if it just provided some clarity on which ways to go, based on what experience they’re looking for. That it feels a bit more random I suppose could encourage people to play through again to see what else they can find, but I’m not positive this feels like something people would be eager to engage with multiple times. It absolutely has that old-school flair to it, and will make you work to survive specific segments, but it is by no means an ideal experience.