Developer: Pyrodactyl
Publisher: Pyrodactyl
Platform: PC, Mac, Linux
Tested on: PC
Will Fight For Food – Review
When the world is filled with people screaming for better story writing and games full of quests for righteousness, there is only one thing left to do: go against it. Will Fight for Food: Super Actual Sellout: Game of the Hour -from now on simply called Will Fight for Food- does just that. Armed with sharp humour, a protagonist that would rather punch your lights out than actually using the switch and a story that makes as much sense as a cat, this one sure promises something different.
Story
In Will Fight for Food, you play as Jared ‘The Red Raptor’ Dent, a cynical pro-wrestler with a penchant for aggressive problem solving. When the local wrestling organisation decides Jared should lose his champion title in the next tournament, The Raptor becomes desperate and reaches out to his one best friend: alcohol. Unfortunately canned mates don’t always give the best advice and so our hero soon finds himself completely hammered in the ring… Quite literally, as his first adversary takes it upon himself to ignore the WFF’s script and forcibly takes the championship belt for himself. Jared, now stripped from more than just his dignity, decides to leave his hometown for some disruptive self-reflection. When he finally returns, he has come to the conclusion only one thing can make his life feel worth living again: some good old face-punching revenge.
The main dialogue and story is mostly built on desert-dry humour that despite its randomness still manages to vaguely make sense. Jokes mainly consist of sarcasm, witty puns and references to tv-series and other games. The latter usually even pretends to allude to something else entirely, adding an extra layer for people that actually understand the references. The best jokes however centre on Dent displaying his usual cynical sense of self-irony, but it is the modest political and economical satire that really makes you think. However, while the story never pretends to take itself seriously, we still feel the creators played it all a little bit too safe in the social criticism department. Because of this, the humour unfortunately never really manages to get you past a light snigger. On the other hand, at least every character has a consistent personality. That’s a plus.
Graphics
The in-game presentation is actually pretty nice. All characters can easily be identified and sprites are well defined. Only the portrait and menu screen art fail to massively woo us. While these designs aren’t too bad while seen on their own, the contrast between their smudged appearance and the sharpness of the rest of the game is too clear. Luckily, even though you will always be aware, you do get used to it.
Jared’s portrait, however, has a very nice feature. While other characters have fixed art depending on the part of the game you are in, Jared’s changes depending on the costume you’ve picked at the start of the game. With about 10 attires to pick from, this means nearly a dozen of portraits to discover.
Sound
The soundtrack is fully composed of nostalgic 8-bit goodness. Every single location and sub-area has its own fitting tune to set the mood. Furthermore, a change to the battle theme warns you about incoming enemies… or the simple fact your über-special wrestling mask is covering your mug. The only problem we faced with the music score is the uneven loudness between the tracks. This translates itself into sudden unexpected blasts that make you question either your sanity or the game. Don’t worry, it’s the game. We promise.
Gameplay
In this RPG Brawler, you lead protagonist Jared throughout his old hometown of Whateville while chosing between picking fights or starting conversations. Maps are completely two-dimentional and so movement, which is done by using the arrow keys, happens in a horizontal way. Little yellow arrows show hint at exits or entryways to sublocations. As a character who’d prefer to solve problems by violence rather than words, the mechanisms for fights and conversations for Jared are very different.
Starting a chat or a discussion can simply be done by standing close to a character and pressing ‘Enter’ or ‘Return’. Conversations that offer easy choices only require you to click to continue and pick the option you want. However, once you need to persuade someone, this whole mechanism changes completely. Suddenly Jared needs to be aware of his own posture and tone while making sure his negotiation partner still gets what he is going on about. Should you be succesful, the opinion of the other person will increase and grant you what you want. If not, it will decrease and the discussion will end with your only option left being the use of your fists.
While the conversation mechanic is a bit complex and takes some time to understand, starting a fight is the complete opposite. A simple press on the Space Bar ‘transforms’ Jared into his Red Raptor self, ready for action. In Will Fight for Food, everyone you encounter can be kicked, punched and dashed into submission by using the z, x and c keys. Of course, starting a fight in the middle of a street does not stay unnoticed. Soon you get surrounded by otherwise unmoving NPCs, all trying to teach you a lesson. While some games might allow you to run from battle, Will Fight for Food effectively blocks any possible way out as long as there is still one person on the map that wants to bash your face in. As zero health means facing the Game Over screen, not allowing yourself to get cornered is a must. Fortunately the frequent autosaves allow you to jump right back into the action. Also, solving problems will grant you certain items that can be equiped in order to raise stats, helping the protagonists in following battles. Despite all of this, fights never actually feel great or dramatic and generally underdeliver.
The way you handle the many dilemmas thrown on your path greatly alters the way your old WFF colleagues look at you. However, the biggest change you’ll find is actually within the side-quests that are littered around the place. While they stay the same no matter your actions, not doing them in the right order or failing certain persuasions can greatly cripple a started side-quest. However, these orders aren’t always completely clear from the start, which means you might have to experiment with different routes in new playthroughs. Unfortunately, some side-quests seem to be broken from the start, which makes it seem like Jared’s true enemies here might actually be the few unfortunate bugs the game still has.
Will Fight for Food is a very short game that can be completed, sub-quests included, in under two hours. While it features four difficulties, seven explorable locations and encourages modding, it is one of those few Steam games to not have any achievements to collect whatsoever.
Conclusion
Though Will Fight for Food: Super Actual Sellout: Game of the Hour has a lot of potential, the game falls flat on its delivery. Especially the fights feel too rudimentary to be truly enjoyable. The complex persuasion-mechanism however add a certain well-placed freshness to the game. Getting the result you want with it is actually more satisfying than the air-kicking you do in the fight sequences. Due to its short playtime, the game could have benefited greatly from further polishing before its release. Even so, Will Fight for Food is, while somewhat mediocre, still an entertaining game.
Will Fight For Food – Review,
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