A wise man once said that you should never cross the streams. It appears that the folks over at Cartoon Network seem to have missed out on that memo, resulting in the newly released Cartoon Network: Battle Crashers. The brawler banks heavily on absurdist humor by combining the worlds of Clarence, Uncle Grandpa, Adventure Time, Steven Universe, Regular Show and The Amazing World of Gumball. While on paper this seems like perfect cross-branding, the resulting product reaffirms the old cliché that has existed since the dawn of game development: licensed games are usually bad. Sadly, this is no exception to the rule.
A Nugget of Fun
It is hard to deny the fact that most brawlers are extremely fun to play. Even the worst beat-em-ups have a visceral quality to combat that make them undeniably entertaining, at least in short bursts. However, if the game plans on having any sort of longevity, there needs to be an endless flow of new mechanics and enemies. This primarily helps keep the combat from becoming repetitive and stale. Someone over at GameMill Entertainment should probably take this into account before releasing their next game, because Battle Crashers ignores this logic entirely. The core game is a mindless, repetitive, button masher with very little depth or replayability. With the combined power of six different Cartoon Network franchises, Battle Crashers should never be short of personality. Having this much of a back-library to draw from is a licensed game developer?...