Dual Core makes use of a genre that was quite popular back in the heydays of the sixteen bit consoles. The mighty top down scroller shooter genre that many older players will fondly remember. But, is it worth revisiting this genre?
The main area of interest in Dual Cores is the Story mode where players take on several levels filled with lots of enemies. The story itself is about robots looking for their human owners who have escaped from a space colony that was taken over by a mysterious group of creatures. Don’t get too excited though since there is very little story progress outside of brief cut-scenes that usually play at the end of each level. There are also text logs left behind by the humans to give a better insight on what happened and to provide clues as to where they ran off to in order to survive the attack.
Given the genre it is only natural that the most important aspect when playing it that the controls work as expected. They work well enough given how simple they are. It’s possible to move with the left analog stick and shoot in any direction using the right analog stick. Despite this, there are some unusual control decisions, such as the fact that it’s necessary to open certain doors by tilting the GamePad or using the touch screen. Any items in the inventory are used by pressing the left trigger, selecting the item and then using it. Most of these actions occur in real time which is quite frustrating given that it makes it difficult to do them when surrounded by enemies. This happens quite often when trying to use keys picked up in levels to open some doors.
Being overwhelmed by enemies is not that difficult given the number of them that spawn even on the first couple of levels. The main issue with this is how easy it is to die after being swarmed by enemies. Doing so will result in having to start the current level from the very beginning. Not even weapons found in the levels make the combat more balanced. It doesn’t help that the AI/CPU companion character isn’t very helpful. It’s true that the ideal scenario is to play through with the help of another player. However, it doesn’t make it any fairer that the AI character constantly dies if left on its own for too long and it is then necessary to go back to revive it. This is due to the fact that there are occasions where two characters are needed to progress further into the level.
Defeating enemies results in being able to pick up items that they tend to drop. These are usually diamonds of different colours that provide health and points used to upgrade stats once enough diamonds have been collected. There are also the occasional health packs and weapons that are dropped by enemies or found in the level. The idea of an upgrade system is good and does come in handy since at least it gives player a slightly better chance of surviving the enemy hordes founds in each of the levels.
It doesn’t help that levels are too similar and this is mainly due to the space colony setting. Which makes it difficult to really care about what little story there is to tell. Even the AI robot partner spouting words of encouragement doesn’t make it any less dull.
The title fares slightly better in the frenetic Arcade mode where up to four human players join forces to take on waves of enemies. The bigger combat area makes it easier to take on large groups of enemies. It’s possible to pick up items and gain upgrade points to use which makes it a lot more feasible to last more than a couple of enemy waves. The point is that it’s a shame Story mode isn’t like this since it would have made it a lot more enjoyable. The only major downside being that this mode only supports local play and it doesn’t have a proper leader-board. Instead, the only incentive to play again is to beat a high-score that is found on the top screen when playing.
Surprisingly one of the highlights for this title comes in the form of the Duel mode. It consists of four human players or one human player and three CPU/AI controller opponents battling it out to see who is the sole survivor. It’s really fun to go up against these three other characters since it’s absolute chaos. This is due to the fact that normal robot enemies also join the fray at one point. Playing with the AI controlled enemies is decent enough, but it’s interesting to imagine what it’s like against other humans. There are also different maps to play in which at least gives an incentive to keep playing the mode for a few matches.
There are some decent ideas in Dual Core that are ruined by a bland Story mode. The lack of a proper incentive to keep playing makes it difficult to recommend the title when there are better multiplayer focused titles already out on the Nintendo Wii U hardware.
