Sugar Shatter provides low floor, high ceiling gameplay in a cute package designed to engage and entertain.
Sugar Shatter pulls inspiration from many sources. You’ve got fun, distinct characters. You battle for control of the ball, and thus the ability to score. Positioning, timing, and managing your super moves are crucial. Stages, and even the bricks you’re breaking, come with a variety of effects. Your characters like to get a little trash talk out. It’s a synthesis of Smash Brothers, Lethal League, classic 1v1 fighters, and block breakers all in one.
In a default match, a few blocks and a neutral ball will spawn at the top of the screen to start the match. Hitting the ball with your basic attack will give you control of it. While you have control of the ball, any blocks it breaks will score you 1 point. You can move and aim the ball by hitting it with your basic attack, jumping up into it, or with certain special moves.
But only a basic attack can steal control. So you’ve also got to be careful to not break blocks by accident while your opponent has control. Sometimes this is easier said than done – the back and forth jockeying for position and control can get rather hectic, especially when you add in environmental effects.
The story mode is a good introduction to the game’s systems and characters. The goals are simple – win a Sugar Shatter tournament, qualify for the World Cup, and win. You start with only one character, but unlock new ones at a pretty quick pace. Special challenge games (like fishing and blueberry bombs) are sprinkled in with regular matches and boss encounters against The Pastry Mafia. The characters are fun plays on candies and baked goods. Each has a distinct visual identity that makes it easy to keep track of the on-screen action.
Every tournament is three encounters long. The cadence of the campaign is broken up into 12 match seasons – three qualifiers and the World Cup. Losing any match will end the tournament you’re in, and you must win at least one qualifier to compete in the World Cup. That means if you lose any of the World Cup matches, you have to go through all four tournaments again to get another chance to progress the story.
Though it also means once you qualify in one, you can forfeit the rest if you want to race to the World Cup. Difficulty can’t be selected for story mode, though you can feel that characters you’ve won World Cup tournaments with are put up against harder AI opponents in future tournaments. Fully completing a character’s story requires four World Cup wins.
As mentioned, your tournament play will sometimes be interrupted by a member of The Pastry Mafia. These boss fights play differently from regular matches. You’ll still have to break blocks, but instead of scoring points it’s to clear a path to whack the boss with the ball. You can also fight against bosses in the Dungeon mode, where you can pick specific bosses and challenge modifiers.
Beating any boss with more modifiers than you’ve previously dealt with (in Dungeon or Story mode) will award you with one Dough. Dough can be spent on upgrades that help you in boss battles, like extra health or special power-ups. Winning tournaments also grants you cash that you can spend on upgrades which will help in every story mode match, like jumping higher or hitting harder.
The highlight of Sugar Shatter, for me, is the versus mode. We did local 1v1 using PS4 controllers and HDMI output to the TV. I think one person on keyboard and one on a controller would also work just fine. Two players can play on the same keyboard, but I think it would feel very crowded to do so. Though if you need to play that way, you can remap the keys however you like to create profiles for both player 1 and player 2. The genius here is that the game is very easy to pick up and play, but the characters are different enough that you can really dig into the matchups in versus mode.
Puff is reserved in story mode. But one of her skills is that she can prevent being stunned if she’s hit the ball just before, so in versus mode we were playing her very aggressively. Mel uses slow instead of stun, so she’s a strong counter to that. Zelle uses her long hair to whip other characters and the ball around, again bypassing the stun immunity. Common wisdom in game design is that players don’t look up. But in Sugar Shatter, you’re more likely to only be looking up.
This is where Rabbit’s ability to drop carrots on the ground is extra powerful, since you have to split your attention in more directions. Kiri is less about messing with your opponent and more about keeping ball control, even being able to teleport to it and autohit it. I’m not great at controlling him, but he was very scary to play against.
I do wish it was possible to mix and match teams a little more. In versus mode you can select the stage, the weather conditions, and the number of characters (2 or 4). But if you’re playing with two humans and two AI, it’s always humans vs AI. If you’re using more than one AI opponent, you’re also limited to only being able to select one skill level which applies to all the AIs.
I’d like to be able to play against my friend and use the AI as a handicap of sorts. A Free For All mode would maybe require too much UI work, but it would be fun as well. Overall though, the depth of the matchups and the fun of 1v1 is paramount.
Accessibility
Completing the story mode with any character will be difficult for a player with significant dexterity issues. A player with moderate dexterity issues could probably complete the story with some practice, though some matchups will be harder than others.
No challenges or gameplay aspects are sound dependent.
Ball control and character teams are indicated by color, not iconography. That said – the use of strong primary colors means that most players with mild to moderate colorblindness will still be able to differentiate them. A player with a severe color detection issue should try out the demo or watch a gameplay clip before purchasing.
Verdict
Sugar Shatter has joined the ranks of Lethal League, Divekick, and Screencheat as one of my personal game night choices. And it’s suitable as either a warm up or a main course. The campaign is charming and enjoyable, but I think the longevity comes from the versus mode. The game is for sale on Steam, but the developer has a free demo on their itch page.
Reviewed on Steam.
A key was provided for the purposes of this review. Review covers version 1.0.1.
Developer/Publisher: SpicyTrain Games
Release Date: Out now
Pros
- Charming, distinct characters and world
- Different modes and difficulty levels offer varied challenges
- A true “one more match” feel to the multiplayer, especially local
Cons
- No difficulty options for main campaign
- Not enough things to spend earnable boss currency on
- Versus mode could use more options for team composition and AI granularity
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Good
