Battle Showdown

Are you ready for an action-packed, high-speed, ultimate chaos battle showdown? Throw together Super Smash, guns, and absolute mayhem, and you’ll come close to this title.

Ethlas: Battle Showdown is ready to get you into the action! With familiar map designs reminiscent of older Super Smash games but infused with extra flavor and spice by the introduction of a very colorful and chaotic theme. It's a mashup of NFT projects, gaming projects, and IPs from all over the place, not to mention a variety of guns and other deadly weapons to ensure the battle is never dull.

Gameplay

As you can see above, there is a lot going on, with the use of many bright and different colors in the game giving it an extra pop. With its 2D art style and the use of notable IPs from both web3 games and NFT projects, E:BS sets itself apart from any other game currently out there.

The level design is simple but works very well for the fast-paced gameplay and short rounds that can be played almost at any given time. The cartoonish characters and guns make it friendly on the eyes, unlike most shooters out there, even giving it a family-friendly feel that kids of a wide range of ages would enjoy.

What's the goal of the game? Well, depending on the game mode you play, it mainly comes down to getting the most kills within the given time. Of course, there are a few different modes such as Hold Zone (which is pretty self-explanatory, capture point a, b, c, and so on) and custom matches where you are able to create custom lobbies. Somewhat of a disappointment for me here is the lack of freedom and customizable rules and weapons scattered on the map, for example. It offers no ways of going overboard, which I would have expected for this game.

For the main game modes, it's solo or team death matches. While the game modes might not be very new or exciting by themselves, they are in the above-mentioned style and gameplay that somehow feels very refreshing and easy to jump in and out of. The fast-paced gameplay and matches make it feel unique and enjoyable!

It also offers a minigame in the form of an endless climber. Even though it's been done a lot already, it manages to bring some new elements to its minigame which are enjoyable. It’s nothing too crazy or something you’ll spend hours on, but it is a nice little diversion for when you're looking for something to spend some lost minutes on. Once again, you’ll be able to bring the various IPs into this mode as well if you manage to unlock them.

The gameplay, controls, and UI all feel very smooth and easy to handle. With mobile controls, we are used to by many other games, there is no learning curve in how to use these effectively. The UI is very easy to navigate and user-friendly. The movement and abilities are very intuitive.

Review

Overall, the game feels and handles very polished. There is a progression system for each character which unlocks passive skills at certain levels, although they are all hidden so there is no way of knowing which character would suit your playstyle best or which character you should be grinding for these unlockables. Only after fully selecting a character, the unlockables were shown, and the overall enhancements that will be unlockable felt very lackluster and very little imagination was used for these.

Overall, E:BS is a nice refreshing game to play a few matches in between other games or tasks during the day. It does very well with adding existing IPs to the game with unique character designs in their 2D world. It’s able to capture a Super Smash-like feeling even though for a short-lived time.

The game doesn’t bring anything spectacularly new to the table but is able to bring it with some seasoning that makes it feel fresh and exciting for a while. A game I’ll keep on my phone for a bit to jump into every now and again but due to its high amount of locked characters with little to no explanation of unlocking them and its lack in depth can become boring quickly or feel as lackluster as the unlockable passive skills.