I tell you, that game, ANTONBLAST, is really good to enjoy! It is a brilliant one from Summitsphere, at that!
It features a literally red-colored demolition expert named Dynamite Anton, or just Anton Ball, and his green-colored partner, Dynamite Annie, or Annie Bell, on a frantic, destruction-filled adventure to retrieve back a collection of Spirits, snatched away by the mole armies from the game's take on Big Bad Red One(if you know what I mean...) after finding out Anton's redder than him and enacts a plot to siphon his own flesh tone to be the reddest being in the whole world. When Anton gets enraged from the theft, he vows to find out the lowlife behind it and blast said being into teeny, tiny, little pieces!
Of course, Annie, having only a fond reason for a chance to be destructive of her own volition, joins in with him.
They both featured in Antonball, a mix of a rather unique take of a Breakout clone and a platformer at once, and its a really interesting game, too, but that's not the point.
The game features a great abundance of platforming reminiscent to that of "Wario Land 4", and it really fills that kind of void Nintendo left behind since "Wario Land: Shake It!", though, I'll admit, that latter game did felt quite slower than the previous because of the Wii's utilization on motion controls, mostly shaking for coins.
Unlike Wario Land 4 and Shake It!, though, rather than being split up into multiple sets of small stages that feature some exploration and little backtracking, ANTONBLAST features 12 SPRAWLING stages, and I do mean that by the word. The goal remains familiar; traverse the stage to find an item needed to progress through the game, in this case, one of Anton's stolen Spirits, look for a powerful detonator and trigger its countdown, and escape to the exit, fast, fast, FAST, before time runs out!
There's additional hidden items to collect, though, and finding them requires quick thinking and clever searching, including cosmetic spray cans that change your chosen character's palettes.
The stages vary, from the very rooftops of Boiler City, their hometown, to the labyrinthine Slowroast Sewers, beneath the depths of the Concrete Jungle, which is one of the stages' actual names, mind you, and even the shopping complexes of The Mad Mall!
Of course, upon triggering the countdown on each stage, there are light flashing sign arrows that guides players the way out, so as not to get lost in the chaos. I think it is much better to have guidance, unlike Wario Land 4's lack of guiding players to the exit after triggering the bomb switch.
Upon finishing said stage, Anton and Annie get transported to Brulo's Casino as their base of operations, though Brulo had barred him from not paying his tab in months, but because of the evil presences ruining his businesses, he will lift his ban on Anton once he rids them of said presences, and acts as his supplier for purchasable items that will help them on their quest, including extending escape time.
I, alongside others, really missed that kind of gameplay blueprint after Nintendo continuously neglected the Wario Land games for constantly creating WarioWare games as their focus. There's not been a new game from that series in a long time, honestly. I don't know why Nintendo couldn't just make a new Wario Land game after Shake It! and keep at it.
Nevertheless...
Across the game, there are bosses to pummel down to pulp, and they are not pulling punches on Anton and Annie, especially the main bosses themselves! They all must be defeated before confronting the evil one himself.
The game also had a large update, called "THE END", and it adds more bosses, more difficulty modes, additional languages, optimizations, fixes, and cosmetic changes... and, adding Lime Trial stages(Its not an intentionally misnamed joke; they really are stages involving collecting actual lime slices under a tight time limit).
The only minor pity is there's not a few new sound effects, custom-made or otherwise, added as part of the update, such as the Sewer Shark having sound effects for boosting and fast movement, for one.
Should ANTONBLAST have a sequel continuing on that kind of blueprint, which I would REALLY love, I would like to see many more new stages past the amount of 12, longer and larger stages, more new bosses to fight, more permanent health upgrades past 6/7, and some stages having an exclusive escape path open to the exit, with blockades preventing backtracking and/or being accidentally dropped to a time-costing path during the countdown as a minor consequence, rather than going back to where players started upon triggering the detonation timer; a sort of a "Point A(start) to B(objective item and detonator) and C(exit)" goal in them, as it were.
Summitsphere's lead, Tony Grayson, did say we've not seen... "The BLAST of Anton" after the game did very well. And, from his comments about worrying about burnout after launching the game, I wouldn't have him worry about it. It would take much more than just launching a game after developing it to experience some burnout.
Out of many games not yet mapped, I'm quite surprised its this game.
Here's its launch trailer for the Switch to give you a clear grasp on what its about...
And, the game's update, "THE END", trailer video...
Anyone wanting to give ANTONBLAST a go, its your chance, for its already out on PC, the Switch(which was delayed slightly because of weather attacks then), and PlayStation systems! I've been enjoying it!
Be ready to enjoy the speedy, explosive carnage coming at you! You'll have... a REAL BLAST!