As I’ve explained many times before, part of what gives the indie game space so much appeal is that it produces so many titles that look, feel, and simply are just different than you could ever see in more mainstream titles made with large budgets. Whether those unique qualities come through in look, play, or even who or what the characters may be, you can generally count on loading up something unexpected. Bossgame fits into that mold without question, with a retro primarily black and white look, a unique style of combat that can get quite intense, and two female leads obviously in love and who banter with the best of them.

If I had to try to come up with a game to compare it to, oddly I’d say that Punch-Out comes to mind. Granted, the style of combat is completely different, but when facing some of these challenging boss battles there’s a certain puzzle-like quality to them that you don’t normally find. They’re all certainly beatable, but by no means does that mean that any of them will go down easily. In fact, the likelihood is that even if you manage to survive the battle, coming out on top, that the road to that victory will be full of near-fatal endings. That’s because your characters really need to rely on their short-lived shielding abilities to weather attacks, because without them they’ll get knocked out. The good news is that as long as one of them is still conscious they’ll be able to power the other back into the fight and so on, making for battles that can keep you on the edge of your seat.

Depending on your tastes, where the weakness of the game may lie is with all of the banter and moments between battles. It isn’t that the characters in the game can’t be fun, but I would say there tends to be a lot of back and forth that can be cute in some way, but it’s typically lacking in substance as well. So you’d likely either find it all light and fun, or perhaps running a bit long in the tooth depending on what you’re looking for. There’s no question that this mix of elements is simply unlike anything I’ve played on the Switch as a whole, but I’m not sure that makes it convincingly a “must play” experience either.