Mercenary Kings:
Reloaded Edition

Mercenary Kings: Reloaded Edition (2014) is a running and shooting game. You control an army character, craft a wide arsenal of weapons and take on bosses that retreat when they are nearly beaten. It's unusual because it leans into gaining familiarity of its levels rather than showing you new locations.

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Play is frantic and looks like a 16-bit Amiga, Atari ST or Sega Megadrive game. You can jump, crouch, roll and zip-wire from one area to another. The small moveset and set-on levels mean you have to get creative to dodge enemy bullets while getting your hits in. Periodically, you have to reload your game by completing a timed challenge. This slows the action temporarily while also upping the tension.

As you progress things move from simple extraction missions to more complex challenges. With these come more difficult enemies. There's not a huge range, but each must be understood and learned if you are to defeat them. You need to learn enemies predictable patterns, rather than just outshoot them.

Each time you complete a mission, or fail, you return to home base. Here you can craft all manner of weapons, combining parts to create new weapons. This system is robust and makes a tangible difference. Which means that finding new gun parts is both rewarding and changes how you approach your next level.

The result is a skill based game that is about technique and refinement rather than just nostalgia. As you play you discover a deeper game loop from the well realised enemies, challenging bosses and general weapon improvement loop. As an added bonus, on PlayStation 4 there are some nice additional controller touches. You can use the touchpad to scroll the map. Each time that you reload your gun the controller makes a sound.

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Our examiner, Andy Robertson, first checked Mercenary Kings: Reloaded Edition 2 years ago. It was re-examined by Jo Robertson and updated 22 months ago.