Entertainment: Dan the Man Mobile Game Review: Good Retro Fun!

I recently stumbled into this video game called Dan the Man by HalfBrick Studios on the App Store. I'm not much of a mobile gamer but I loved this game so much I got inspired to write something good about it. I did some extra snooping around and found their official website here. Go check it out!

Bright and action-packed!

Let me just get right into it. Dan the Man exudes the essence of a bunch of things, but one of the first things that it reminded me of is Scott Pilgrim Vs the World: The Video Game. For those of you who don't know, that's a game released in 2010 that's based on the movie with the same name. If you haven't played it nor seen the movie, you should check it out. I'm not writing this blog post to talk about Scott Pilgrim though, so I'm not going to link to any of that (I also think it's a movie that you should jump into completely blind 'cause it's more fun that way. The trailer gives out way too much information).

From here on out it's nothing but Dan the Man. From the story, to the, presentation, and then to the gameplay. Lmao just kidding. I'm the kind of guy who looks for similarities between things of the same medium, so I can't help it if my blog post detours into other video games for a few sentences. I'll be going over the story, presentation, and gameplay in that order, but expect me to gush about a different game while I go through them.

Story
I was surprised to know there was a short web series for Dan the Man. I'm glad the game pointed that out. I highly recommend you check it before you play the game because the game picks off where the web series ends. Even though the story isn't very integral to the game, you can still be confused as to why you're doing things or why does it look like you're working with the bad guys.

In a nutshell, the story revolves around Dan, a belligerent fighter who prefers to solve everything with violence. Dan sees his world as if it were a video game, so when he messes up and dies he loses a life and he's thrown back into the past with memories of his previous life. He can then take a different course of action if he wanted to. He meets a bunch of different friends, and girls, and unearths conspiracies as the plot ensues.

I have to say it gets pretty wild though. The content of the web series isn't really for kids *ahem* Stage 4 *ahem*. The game however, tones down on the mature content. Dan the Man isn't the pinnacle of storytelling like Game of Thrones per se, but the web series is ballsy enough to make a few unexpected plot twists here and there.

The first episode of the web series -- aptly titled Stage 1 -- doesn't really show much of the "mature content" I mentioned, but I think it's something both kids and adults can like. Colorful animation for the youngsters and all-too-relatable dilemmas for those 20 years old and up.

Presentation
I honestly fell in love with the presentation of the game. It put a smile on my face when I saw the sprites and the cutscenes of the prologue because it's so unique from the minimalist design of most trending mobile games like Balls Bricks Breaker. Dan the Man's going for a charmingly retro feel and I'd say they nailed that down rather nicely. The pixelated environment is vibrant and crafted with care. You'll traverse all sorts of different places in Dan the Man, and each area sports its own different motif like a castle, the woods, or the sewers. If I had to draw a comparison of the presentation of the game with something that's more or less the same, I'd bring up the classic 2D shooter Metal Slug. I think the creators took inspiration from it; because Stage 1 has Marco, one of the main characters of Metal Slug, making a cameo on the TV.

The music of the game is also super catchy.  Much like Scott Pilgrim Vs the World: The Video Game, Dan the Man plays upbeat, 8-bit tunes as you smack and whack bad guys in the face. The "Stage Complete" audio queue starts to become endearing after a while.

Gameplay
The core mechanics of the game is 60% a beat-em-up and 40% a platformer. Both of which it does really well. The game is really easy on the first levels but later on the casual gamer will have a hard time because the jumping gets trickier and the baddies get tougher. It's nothing a seasoned gamer can't beat, but if you find yourself lacking the skills and the time to acquire the said skills, you can always grind in Survival mode to make enough Gold to buy all the great upgrades.

There's a lot of variety in the thugs that you fight, and you have a huge arsenal of moves and weapons to choose from to wreck havoc on anyone standing in your way. The combat is accessible because it's possible to button mash your way through the entire game on the lowest difficulty setting, yet the game will also reward you for putting in some variety into your combinations.

The level design is also pretty clever. There are challenging platformer sections but they won't be too frustrating. There are also secret areas and items hidden in every level (A whole lot like Super Mario Bros.) so it's fun to explore the different places.


So there you have my short review of the game. What are your thoughts, do you think the game deserves a sequel? Let's talk about it after you've finished the story :)