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A chaotic fun multiplayer brawler with Kaijus and Mechas for PC, now on Mobile via Cloud | GigaBash

283 View2023-12-22

GigaBash

8.4

DestructionCompetitiveRetroNostalgiaPartyBattle Royale4 Player LocalAction

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✨Overview

GigaBash is a thrilling multiplayer arena brawler that seamlessly blends the chaos of titles like Power Stone, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, and Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters with the awe-inspiring scale of classic kaiju movies. The game invites players to claim their place as king among Titans, offering a choice between rampaging Titans and Titan-hunting mechas. The game has been out on PC and consoles since last year, and has recently got its Ultraman DLC, following the Godzilla DLC last year. A demo is available, and I got a chance to try that on Steam.

⭐️Score: 8/10

Pocket Playfest: An Indie Celebration 2023 Winter Edition

In a recent hands-on exclusive experience this past weekend, I had the privilege of testing a handful of titles on TapTap's experimental cloud gaming service, setting the stage for this 16-day event where indie game developers show-off their creations exclusively on the TapTap mobile platform — fully playable PC games without the need for an actual PC, Android/iOS version, or the need to download the games and install them. Granted, you’d need to have a reliable internet service to be able to stream these games, and preferably are located in US and Canada for consistent play and latency, at least for now.

🔗Join the Playfest >>
https://www.taptap.io/events/playfest2023winter

📅 Schedule
Dates: December 23, 12 AM PT - January 7, 11:59 PM PT.
Playfest Winners & Player Rewards Announcement: January 8, 12 AM PT.

For my personal cloud gaming experience in this specific, please see further below in the review.

📖Premise

The game offers four single-player campaigns exploring the origins of Titans, The overarching premise revolves around the clash of Titans in a world where nowhere is safe from their wrath. It’s not included in the Demo edition, so you’d have to purchase the game to experience the story mode.

🎨Graphics and Art Style

The graphics in GigaBash feature a stylized 3D design and a cartoony aesthetic; vibrant, and colorful visual effects, with fully destructible environments that are filled with detail. The fully destructible environments, complete with small citizens running around and perishing amidst the chaos, add depth and immersion to the experience. The constant evolution of maps, from flooding lavas to exploding buildings, enhances the dynamic nature of the game.

🎮Gameplay

In GigaBash, players can choose from a colorful roster of 10 unique characters, each with its own moveset and playstyle. The objective is to unleash havoc and evolve into the terrifying S-Class form. Each character; Kaiju or Mecha, has different skins available so that all players can pick the same one and still look different from each other.

GigaBash offers a diverse range of gameplay modes, catering to both solo and multiplayer experiences. Players can engage in free-for-all battles, team-based matchups, and even cooperative modes against waves of AI enemies. There is also Duel mode for head-to-head clashes, and a variety of minigames for the ultimate party experience. The demo strictly required a controller, so using keyboard and mouse is out of the question.

The easy-to-learn mechanics make the game accessible, while the potential for mastery lies in timing attacks, blocking opponents, using grabs and specials, and building up the meter to reveal the final, even bigger S-Class form.

⚔️Combat

The combat in GigaBash is fun, energetic, and, chaotic. Each Kaiju or Mecha feels distinct and plays fantastically, with their own movesets and playstyles. The controls are a bit clunky and hard to get used to; the animations sometimes feel stiff; plus the movesets can get a bit repetitive for each character, regardless, I found the overall experience engaging nonetheless, and fun especially if you are playing with friends.

The emphasis on destructible environments makes the game a whole lot more enjoyable than a traditional brawler, as you can pretty much smash buildings, throw, and kick enemies through them and completely level the city.

⚖️Demo Features and Conclusion

The demo of the game only gave access to Couch Coop mode, with four maps and three characters unlocked, but so far the experience has been awesome and this is easily a game worth getting if you love Kaijus and have some buddies to play it with.

☁️General Cloud Gaming Experience

This past weekend, I had the chance to be chosen as one of the testers for an experimental cloud gaming service by TapTap, and I must say, it holds a lot of promise. The quality is seriously impressive - we're talking sharp HD resolution, not like your typical streamed game. Looks and feels native and doesn’t feel like its streamed. The performance is also smooth (60FPS), with good frame timing (by visual observation only, as there was no tool to monitor this). There’s currently no way to play at a native 16:9 with black bars, as the screen is stretched out to the phone’s screen.

📶Cloud Latency

In my experience, my latency during the test phase was around 200ms --- only because the servers are currently located in United States for now and I'm connecting from asia. Even then, It’s still a bit playable, especially for games that are not latency sensitive like point and click games or those with simple controls. Having said that, it’s just a matter of server location and having lots of servers. It’s understandable since this is just a testing phase with limited servers. If a datacenter is nearby, I am positive that I’ll have a smooth and fluid experience, same with those living in the US or Canada. It works like a charm on 5GHz wifi, but the experience took a hit on 2.4GHz, so won’t recommend that.

🕹Cloud Touch Controls

Now, onto the user interface. I'm a fan of how each game has its own custom on-screen buttons, tailored to the specific control scheme. It works like a charm for simpler games, but things get a bit tricky with more complex ones.

🔃Cloud Accessibility

Accessing the service is a breeze - the Instant Play integration is right there on the game page, next to Download/Steam/Play buttons. Loading times are impressively fast, and I love that I can minimize the TapTap app and return to the game still streaming. Progress is not yet saved between streaming sessions, so it’s clearly just for testing purposes. Overall, it's been an interesting experience, and while there are some kinks, the potential here is exciting. Definitely surpassed my expectations.

🌩Specific Cloud Game Experience

GigaBash is fully playable experience on cloud despite its numerous complex brawler controls, its easily manageable and if you’re anything used to mobile games, this will feel like a native title. The real-time combat requires optimally low latency, but since it’s just a casual experience, it’s not a strict requirement to enjoy the game. I played with 200ms and Its still quite playable.