Mighty Goose (Xbox Series X)

The Metal Slug series is known for some frankly superb pixel art and spritework coupled with intense run and gun action, but its one-hit kills also make it a fairly difficult series of games. Mighty Goose takes some clear inspiration from the series, from having an excited voice announce when you pick up new guns to having a tank you can hop in that looks an awful lot like the eponymous Metal Slug tank, but it has at least two key differences: you can actually take a few hits before dying in Mighty Goose, and you play as a goose.

 

Mighty Goose is a bit of an unusual character in his world, many other animals in his space-faring escapades being anthropomorphic and capable of speech. Mighty Goose himself appears to just be a goose with mechanical arms and legs added to him, but while he can only communicate through honking, he is clearly more than happy to head out into the universe to blast people apart with those robotic limbs. Working as a bounty hunter, Mighty Goose earns the attention of the Void King after busting an ally out of one of the king’s prisons, but while the Void King will be the ultimate enemy of this fairly short but action-packed run and gun platformer, he isn’t much of a present threat for most of it. Mighty Goose’s work has him responding to a bug infestation in a rabbit run mine and participating in a battle arena, but as you hop between planets and space stations you will sometimes encounter those who serve the Void King, their presence growing more pronounced until you finally take the fight to him.

Mighty Goose’s action is definitely the main focus though, the player running through levels filled with little groups of enemies who pop up periodically. Mighty Goose’s default gun is actually a bit weak but enough for the most basic foes he runs into, but beating baddies or breaking containers can get you weapons that last as long as their ammo does. You can only carry one weapon at a time, but anything but the default gun is a useful tool to have. The machine gun is just a bump up in shot speed and strength but it is common enough that in most situations it will likely be your go-to gun. The shotgun is made to mostly blast baddies who are fairly close but it does so with incredible strength, it often outshining the machine gun despite lower ammo simply because a good blast is worth many machine gun bullets. You can aim your gun up and down, including in the air where firing downwards can propel you upwards for some of the platforming sections. If you want to get a good angle on the often packed battlefield, the shotgun in particular great for launching yourself higher so you can fire down on your foes. The tesla gun is a chaotic affair though, firing big balls of plasma connected by lightning that clearly are effective but it can be difficult to glean how much they’re helping in the visual clutter. The rocket launcher that has homing missiles is actually fairly tame by comparison, the slow-moving missiles strong but it seems wiser to often lean on rapid fire weapons than this powerful tool that can’t always keep up with the pace of combat.

 

The weapon selection does feel a little small, especially with the game handing out machine gun and shotgun so often, but the effects definitely make each shot feel powerful, especially as the combo system can lead to slow-motion kills and on-screen effects like a giant goose head honking in glee at the carnage. However, the effects can sometimes be a bit too much, enemies often indicating when they’ll attack with a flash but when you have weapons like the tesla gun filling the screen with lightning bolts it’s easy for a simple shot from the opposition to slip through. That is where the game’s health system makes things easier to stomach since you can afford to take three hits before the final bit of damage is lethal, and checkpoints in levels do allow you to pop back in with the main penalty being to your end of level ranking that mostly goes towards unlocking extra goodies. During a level though you’ll collect coins from enemies you defeat, incentivizing you to defeat every foe that you face even if you’re not trapped until you kill them because you can use this cash to buy weapons when you want them. Simply pause and Mighty Goose pulls out a phone to order a weapon delivery, the prices prohibitive to some degree so that you won’t be leaning on it all the time but there are later stages where the game gets less generous with weapon drops and having this as back-up is handy.

 

Oddly enough though, the game does feel like it’s perhaps too generous with health at times. A fair few bosses could have been far more intense if they weren’t dropping health kits left and right, and while this was likely to mitigate some of their more overwhelming attacks, there are already some systems in place like a boss who lets you shoot down his many shots and tells that show you where an attack is going to land so you can avoid it. Mighty Goose still has its moments where you can’t be so careless and some of the give and take on how abundant weapons and health are does make for areas that feel a bit different even if the game likes its orange backgrounds and bare foregrounds a bit much.

We still haven’t got quite through all the different things influence the regular combat though, and that’s a fortunate thing as the totality definitely makes this short game shine more than if it tried to keep things too simple. Build up some energy by doing well in combat and you’ll fill your Mighty Meter, the player able to activate a brief period of invincibility and heavily increased firepower good for dishing out heavy damage to bosses or clearing out a troublesome enemy group but not lasting so long or having so much strength it invalidates the difficulty, especially since the meter won’t fill up too often outside of special conditions. Mighty Goose can have a companion come along to help, either with their own attacks or with things like the occasional machine gun drop, although the game’s co-op mode actually has the second player play as these deliberately limited companions and they can barely make a dent compared to the goose. You can also get special abilities that remain available during a stage and replenish on a cooldown like a bomb to throw or a little skeleton to summon as you get deeper in the game. Performing well in stages and meeting certain conditions will unlock new powers and let you engage with a simple upgrade system where you allocate a set amount of power to different systems to gain advantages like greater movement speed, a double jump, and higher ammo counts for found weapons.

 

Things are segmented well so after a level you check out any new goodies you want to enable and then can pop into the next stage and not worry too much about them as your focus is still on firing away and dodging mostly, but every now and then you might also find vehicles to pop into. A battle bike, a tank with a fairly flexible side gun, and some mechanized armor with a sword all give you more durability on top of a new way to fight that offsets some of the stagnation in the available gun types, the player still getting injections of something less standard so that the battles against a small roster of enemy types doesn’t grow stale. Oddly enough one of the earlier levels, the battle arena, shows you a good deal of the enemies you’ll encounter in the adventure and many of them are variations on a soldier archetype like bomb throwers or ones with jetpacks and then the bug baddies that might fly, have tough shells, or come in huge swarms despite their small size. They’re still fun to fire upon for a while and then the Void King’s more mysterious forces join the more standard troops that presumably serve him. The bombastic bosses are often highlights of the action despite the health kit kindness though as they often take up a good degree of the screen and involve a lot of moving around or using your dodge roll while actively firing on them, although the best level is definitely the post-game stage.

 

Added in an update, a water world with its own new villain serves as one long stage with many new enemies and ideas. The planet Ceto has submarine and surfing sections as well as mutated seagulls to fight on dry land, and its two bosses are interesting even if the stage itself will probably be a bit easier than most due to you having an adventure’s full of upgrades going into it. Still, it is a greater show of creativity than the stages that can blend together thematically even if you do find yourself exploring locations with enough gameplay variation they don’t grow old. Ceto definitely feels like it clearly tips the game into something worth seeing rather than just a well done execution of run and gun action in a small package, Mighty Goose feeling like it didn’t take the page out of Metal Slug’s book when it came to thematic diversity within its action-packed campaign.

THE VERDICT: While sometimes a bit thin in the range of content it offers, Mighty Goose is still a high energy action game where blasting away the baddies with your screen-shaking arsenal remains satisfying. The different vehicles, weapons, and unlockables give the player a good range of options but not an overwhelmingly complex selection, the action still focused on reflexes and spectacle first and foremost. It is a shame some of that spectacle makes it hard to see enemy attacks at times, but Mighty Goose can be forgiving with its health pick-ups to offset it while still having some tenser moments where you are feeling resource starved. Quick and explosive, Mighty Goose has some fun to provide even though it feels more content could have made it a more rollicking ride.

 

And so, I give Mighty Goose for Xbox Series X…

A GOOD rating. There are certainly stages and segments in Mighty Goose where it felt like you were just being tossed a new group of enemies to fill some time, but others do mix up the way you can fight and how the battle is laid out well enough that there are still more exciting moments than filler fights. Boss battles can be explosive encounters that really shine even if the health drops a bit too much during them, and Ceto is such a stand out level that it helps offset some of the niggling issues like the screen being filled with too much action to sometimes see incoming shots. It’s perhaps not as kooky as a game about a weapon-wielding goose sounds on the surface but it does have some action movie energy to it like when the goose puts on shades when he hops aboard the one wheel motorbike. The phone system is actually a fairly smart if understated part of the adventure where engaging with enemies can reward you with weapons in a pinch, even that one-wheeler able to be called in during boss fights to give you its unique movement style and extra defense. Mighty Goose does keep its boons well balanced though so you aren’t walking around an invincible war machine, but you still get a sense that you’re making your own preferred way of fighting by picking your companion, abilities, and upgrades despite being bound to whatever weapon drops crop up within the stage. What Mighty Goose needed most of all though was consistent variation, the game not hitting the player often enough with situations that will wow them and the enemy range a bit smaller than one might expect for a planet-hopping adventure. Tidy up the enemy attack visibility some too and it can more easily stand beside its clear inspiration in terms of quality, but it still has a lot of good ideas that make it stand out from Metal Slug even if it doesn’t really surpass the best installments of that series.

 

Mighty Goose feels a bit like a genre game. If you like the action-packed run and guns that embrace blowing things apart with heavy firepower, it provides that experience even if its identity isn’t so pronounced it can stand on its own. It has some memorable moments here and there but it also pads itself a little bit despite already being only a few hours long. A New Game Plus hard mode doesn’t quite elevate it to something that absolutely needs to be seen, but it has a good bushel of ideas to make its action enjoyable for the quick ride. Mighty Goose slides in neatly among its genre contemporaries and won’t leave you wanting, but it’s still got a way to go before it can really pull you in with something truly worthy of attention.