Basureroes: Invasion Review

It is a decade after defeating Dr. Diogenes, who was wreaking havoc with his robots in New Genesia City. A group of heroes, called the Basureroes, worked together to defeat the villain and restore peace to the city. He is now back and more dangerous to get revenge on our team of heroes. The team bands together once more, unaware that besides Dr. Diogenes, another otherworldly threat awaits them. Will the Basureroes be able to fight off two threats at once?

The intro taking you to the game's main menu looks just like the beginning of Mega Man 2, where the camera pans up a building to the top. One big difference between Basureroes: Invasion and the Mega Man series is that it is not only for one player; here you can have four players at once. Thing is, only the first player can pick their hero, all the others will be a robot called a BasuBot who fires missiles. The other heroes aren’t available to select until you rescue them in the game. Depending on how much frustration you want while playing with others, you can turn off friendly fire if you would like. If you don’t mind the chaos that occurs by hitting the other heroes, then, by all means, leave it on. The game also has options to apply a variety of filters, like scanlines, change the colour to black and white, or adjust for multiple types of colour blindness like tritanopia, protanopia, and deuteranopia.

When you play, there are adventure and battle modes to select, and then once you complete the adventure, a boss mode will be available. Along with this, you can select if the game is Modern, offering unlimited lives, or Classic, where the amount of lives you have is limited. There are multiple difficulty options ranging from easy, normal, to hard. Once you complete the game, hero difficulty is available to challenge.

Now one last thing before jumping into the action. You will have to select which hero you want to play as from four options: Masked Garbageman, who has short-range attacks and can glide; Trash Can Avenger (has a garbage can upside down on his head) can hide from enemies and launch bombs; Organic Waste (looks like a banana) uses a bo staff and bananarangs; and Night Recycler has an energy arm cannon with two different types of shots and looks like a mix of Zorro and Mega Man. All have a different difficulty rating, the easier being Night Recycler and the hardest being Masked Garbageman. 

I feel like I had to take Night Recycler since I love Mega Man so much. I was very happy to see that the controls are basically the same as they are in the Mega Man game series. I played the game on the Steam Deck and the computer with an Xbox controller. The bottom face button is used to jump; you can also wall jump, bouncing between the two. The left face button fires the arm cannon, but if you hold it down, you can charge your shot for a more powerful blast. As you explore the stage, you can view signs posted that will tell you the different controls for each ability. I was excited to see that you have the ability to slide using the left or right triggers to squeeze through small corridors.

After you beat the first boss, a huge swarm of UFOs fills the sky; these aliens are here to conquer Earth. Surprised by this event, our heroes have been captured and each taken to a different location. With no one there to stop them, the extraterrestrial beings are free to do what they want. The invasion has now begun. As you traverse the stages, you take down any aliens you find. They look like they are prepared for the atmosphere on Earth, as they are all wearing what looks to be spacesuits. If you encounter a stronger foe, a little health bar appears above their head. There's a chance that defeated enemies will drop small or large hearts that will recover a bit of your health meter located in the top left corner of your screen. Right under this, you will see outlines of five people and a dog; once you rescue them, they will turn into a person cheering. 

Most of the time these people are found off the beaten path, so it's worth exploring and not only sticking to the main path the areas point to. You may come across locked gates; some of these won't open until you have defeated all the enemies in that area. You may also find some of the other lost heroes. Any aliens you defeat won't reappear when you leave the screen and come back unless you die, then they are all there again. 

At the end of the second stage, you meet King V’rrer, who is from the planet V’rsura. He is there to conquer Earth just like all the other planets they have taken over; they always win. Resistance is futile… once you defeat the stage boss, you make your escape by jumping into one of the empty UFOs and flying off. Once the stage is done, you see a world map showing you the different stages in the area to challenge. 

There are 12 different locations to visit, all with different themes like a sewer, spaceship, or a train. Under the name of the stage, you will see how many people you managed to save and how many medals out of three you received. There you can earn medals for finding all the checkpoints, one for rescuing all the captives, and the last if you found and saved the dog. If you missed anything, you can always return and play the level again with a different hero to access everything located on the stage. Each of the levels also has a Time Trial that you can do to add more replayability. 

Along with a different pixelated theme, each stage has a different song. This sounds like it would be a good thing, but each of the levels has the same issue: the theme is very short and repeats constantly. It becomes so repetitive in a short span of time and to the point where it becomes incredibly irritating. I thought that I would just turn the music down, but the problem when you do that is you can’t hear the dog that you are supposed to be saving barking, so chances are you would miss it. Besides the music repeating, there were sequences where the stage itself would be repeated. I encountered this while on the train stage, where one part has you defeating a flying alien, then two others on a speeder zip past. This happened a few times within a couple of screens.

 
You will meet a lot of different characters on your journey and learn from one named Miguel that you can't rescue everyone in the stages without the help of your other team members. Since you are at the Secret Base you can get access to a motorcycle that you will need to catch the train in the next level. The castle is dark once you enter, and you will need to shoot to set the torches on fire to produce a circle of light. This becomes a massive pain in the butt when you are trying to rescue the dog. Sure, it's adorable in its ghost costume, but when you are holding it, you can't shoot, so you have to set it down, shoot, and then pick it back up again. In screens where there are eight torches to light and enemies to shoot, this sucks! It is not fun to do. 

Basureroes: Invasion is an interesting title to play with a fun pixel aesthetic, vibrant colours, and a Mega Man-like feel. It does have some issues holding it back from being great, the music being incredibly repetitive and the mechanics of trying to save the dog in each level becoming very frustrating. Constantly having to set the pup down to shoot the enemies firing at you was annoying. I can take the dog up a ladder, slide, and jump with no problem, but shooting is a no-go. Plus, each stage will take multiple playthroughs with all the different characters to access the different areas, which feels like a chore, especially when the music gets annoying fast! The game isn’t bad, but it can just get irritating at times, though having the chance to play with other people locally is pretty cool!