DC League of Super-Pets: The Adventures of Krypto and Ace (Xbox Series X)
The super-pets found in early DC Comics have always delighted me, the fact that a dog with Superman’s powers or a hound that uses Batman’s gadgets were ideas that were embraced wholeheartedly really showing how willing comic writers were to try any idea no matter how odd or seemingly silly. While eventually the super-pets were pushed aside to try and tell more serious stories, they have managed to make their way back into comics and even started showing up in related works like an animated television series and even the feature length animated film DC League of Super-Pets. That film would even receive a tie-in game in the form of DC League of Super-Pets: The Adventures of Krypto and Ace, but unfortunately, while this rail shooter is willing to embrace the idea of a flying dog with laser vision, it certainly seems reluctant to try any creative ideas of its own.
DC League of Super-Pets: The Adventures of Krypto and Ace does not start with a cutscene nor does it feature any true cutscenes at all, the story kicking off as you have a view of a map of Metropolis that serves as the level select screen. All of the story is told by way of dialogue boxes that appear on this unexciting screen, and while the lines are voiced and some performances like the voices behind PB the Wonder-Pig and Ace the Bathound have some energy, it does feel fairly lifeless when characters have to describe their actions since they’re not depicted on-screen. Krypto, the super-powered dog belonging to Superman, and Ace, Batman’s trusty canine companion, are called into action when the super villain Lex Luthor has decided to put together a zoo by abducting pets all around town with his LexBots. A few other Super-Pets are working in their part of town to hold back Lex’s forces, Chip the Green Lantern Squirrel, Merton the tortoise tied to The Flash, and the Wonder Woman inspired pot-bellied pig PB each having a section of the city with five stages each, but as you beat levels in one part of the city, Lex’s robots can regain ground in the others and make extra side levels appear. Only the main 15 levels are required to beat the game, and it is nearly as small as it sounds, DC League of Super-Pets: The Adventures of Krypto and Ace likely to take 2 to 3 hours to beat depending on how much you dabble in things like the extra missions.
Being a rail shooter, the player’s forward movement is completely controlled by the game, your concerns being to move up, down, left, or right to avoid danger while firing upon the enemies in front of you. Krypto’s heat vision is a natural fit for shooting down enemies as he flies through the city skies, but Ace the Bathound has no superpowers… which doesn’t hold him back much. You can select to play as either Krypto or Ace in any level and they play pretty similarly thanks to Ace strapping on a jetpack and firing Batarangs in a similar manner to Krypto’s laser beams. They do differ in one key way, their super moves that gradually charge up functioning differently. Krypto unleashes a powerful sustained beam for a while but Ace focuses instead on a single effective moment, time freezing as every enemy in his sights is hit with a Batarang for an instant kill barring special circumstances like bosses. This is enough to develop a preference incidentally, LexBots sometimes appear together on screen in one large group so Ace could be the better choice to avoid being overwhelmed but Krypto can dish out heavy damage for longer, meaning you’re not just waiting for the right moment as often as you are with Ace.
When starting a level you also get to pick one of the other Super-Pets to provide you an additional special ability you can activate on occasion, although they perhaps lead a little too strong with the first one being Chip’s ability to create a copy of you to fire shots for a while too. Merton’s extra speed boost pales in comparison as dodging is often not that difficult, but PB’s temporary invincibility can at least pay off in some later stages or help younger children handle the gradual but small increase in difficulty. Unfortunately, the levels in DC League of Super-Pets: The Adventures of Krypto and Ace are incredibly samey and won’t put up too strong a fight save for the youngest or most inexperienced of players. They aren’t completely toothless, the game starting to introduce LexBots that fire dangerous rings to try and control where you can fly while the generic flying drones and grounded tanks eventually start firing more quickly and appearing in bigger groups, but the first five stages are far too basic since the tougher enemy types haven’t appeared yet. Healing checkpoints are perhaps a bit too kind considering you probably won’t get roughed up too much, but while that feels like an allowance for young players again, it still doesn’t excuse away the fact that Metropolis is so boring to fly through. The generic city setting doesn’t afford much variance in what you’ll be flying past, and while the game does try to move from city streets to rooftops and between large skyscrapers, it hardly feels different save for the rare inspired moment like the elevated train bearing enemy tanks atop it at one point.
While it gets off to an incredibly weak start though, DC League of Super-Pets: The Adventures of Krypto and Ace does at least up the danger just enough you can’t get complacent and totally tune out from the action on screen. This doesn’t rescue it from growing dull as so much of the action blends together, and the few rare breaks from the typical flying forward aren’t very good either. Sometimes the camera shifts from behind the back to an aerial view mostly so you can dodge cars or objects, but you can slow or speed up your flight so you can either make it easier or just do things like fly on the middle line to avoid two-lane traffic. Bosses do ask you to move a bit more to avoid damage but there’s only three and they aren’t too complicated so figuring out how to dodge is a cinch. Weakest of all though but thankfully optional is a segment where Krypto or Ace hit the ground and start running towards stationary robots, the player needing to hit a direction the d-pad that matches on on-screen prompt to destroy the machine effectively. This happens three times per instance of this and it looks the same every time, its main purpose seemingly being a source of easy score. Each level rates your performance and shooting enemies without getting hurt yourself can build up a multiplier for the next points you receive. This means at least even if shooting down enemies isn’t too hard for you, you can try and go for high scores, but earning the top rank is too easy and not really rewarded beyond a mark on the map.
One slightly interesting idea though is that you can find collectible pet cards during a level. These cards are the kidnapped animals meant for a rather unexciting sounding zoo, and when you’ve rescued a pet it will be sent to the adoption center that you actually help run. Each pet, be it cat, dog, bird, or lizard, will have two traits listed on their card, and after a mission it will be time to either feed them or play with them. You don’t actually interact with the animal truly, you look at their card and select from one of three items for it to eat or play with, a more appropriate choice raising their happiness and gradually making them comfortable with the idea of being adopted. Once they’re ready, you have humans who also have cards that list two traits, and while the pet traits almost always make picking the food or playtime toy easy, matching them up with humans is harder as the clues don’t so easily line up. Depending how good the matches you make are, you’ll earn credit that eventually pays off with upgrade points. Upgrade points are also earned after clearing levels and they do things like extend how long your Super-Pet friends can provide their abilities or how much health the dogs have, and while the upgrades don’t feel too necessary for success, the quick process of pleasing the pets and putting them up for adoption at least can pay off with perceptible rewards like having Chip’s green clone help you out for longer in a level.
THE VERDICT: DC League of Super-Pets: The Adventures of Krypto and Ace barely deviates from the plain formula found in its first stage, but thanks to the gradual addition of some enemies and lightly increased aggression in the familiar foes, it finds a comfortable monotony that is easy to push through for its short runtime. It might work as baby’s first rail shooter, but its weak presentation both in how it tells its story and how its levels look makes it a bit unappealing even then. You can turn your mind off and clear this simple game in a short amount of time, but there are much better games for mindless entertainment and just featuring flying dogs doesn’t make the repetitive LexBot blasting here exciting enough to stand out.
And so, I give DC League of Super-Pets: The Adventures of Krypto and Ace for Xbox Series X…
A BAD rating. With the first third of the game mind-numbingly easy and unexceptional, DC League of Super-Pets: The Adventures of Krypto and Ace was at risk of being a much worse experience, but despite cutting corners on things like the way the plot is presented, there is at least enough sense to gradually up the difficulty just a smidge. There will be times Krypto or Ace will face a large group of enemies who fire fairly quickly when they appear, making it more likely you will take damage and thus emphasizing the importance of movement. At the same time, it’s not particularly challenging to start dodging, but it’s not absolutely bereft of difficulty so the game manages to shake off absolute stagnation in favor of something plain but not egregiously dull. It won’t really provide much for a gamer who has a decent handle on rail shooters, but a young or casual player might find it puts up a decent fight even if the game still isn’t putting forth the most interesting content to challenge their fledgling skills.
It’s fairly clear Outright Games was more concerned with getting this game out than making it stand out, it releasing two weeks before the broad theatrical release of DC League of Super-Pets. Perhaps with more time there could have been proper cutscenes or more ideas for LexBots and level designs, but while making it a rail shooter was an interesting choice for this movie tie-in, it ends up hearkening back not to the wonderful weird comics of old but to the unimaginative and vapid movie tie-in games common in the 90s and early 2000s.