MilitAnt (2016)

MilitAnt is an exercise in "what-if"; there's a lot of potential for a great platformer, but it's mired by shoddy gameplay systems and poor design. We're hoping to see a sequel that corrects these mistakes, but this one is quite the disappointment.

MilitAnt is offensively bad, it looks like a PS2 game and plays like something a few amatuer developers cobbled together. This wouldn't be an issue if there wasn't a price tag involved. Steer well clear of this.

With so much potential in the premise, it’s a shame MilitAnt didn’t deliver where it counts in the gameplay department.

There is very little fun to be had in MilitAnt. After spending most of my time breezing through half of the game’s bosses, all but submitting to the other half (with a pair of very green exceptions), and rushing past nearly every basic enemy, I get the impression that this ubiquitous imbalance in difficulty is more likely a vast oversight than a design choice. I appreciate Xibalba Studios’ focus on old-school level design, and some of the boss designs showed real inspiration, both in gameplay and aesthetics. But the desultory approach to enemy design and combat mechanics completely overshadows any of MilitAnt’s potentially redeeming qualities.

Many elements of MilitAnt's core design are flawed, so it's no surprise that the game as a whole is pretty dire.