Title: Mercenary Kings: Reloaded Edition
Platform: PS4, PSVita, Switch, PC, Xbox One

Mercenary Kings: Reloaded Edition is an enhanced port of its original title Mercenary Kings, which was release back in 2014. This enhanced port is available free to anyone who has purchased the original title, and is also available for purchase for Switch owners and newcomers. This time around the Reloaded Edition comes with some new content such as new balances, weapons and characters. Is it worth a revisit, or does it lack in bringing players back to the mayhem?

Visuals

Mercenary Kings Reloaded Edition gameplay visuals take inspiration from classic titles such as the Metal Slug series. With the gorgeous and smooth animated retro style character sprites and the 16-bit backgrounds, Mercenary Kings Reloaded Edition fits perfect on one of its new home, the Nintendo Switch, along with the platforms it has made a return to. It never got old seeing the different variations of enemies and bosses even after the 4 years that have passed by since the first title.

Audio

The soundtrack of Mercenary Kings Reloaded Edition is still the same tracks from the original, and is still engaging as ever bring back that old school shooter genre attitude and feel. The tracks never felt like they were too repetitive and used too much throughout the game and the sound FX is what to expect as well

Gameplay

The core gameplay is back, as players will take on many missions such as rescue, item collecting, eliminate and many more different style missions. Co-op is back as well, with four player split screen and online play, so players can take on the missions with some friends at anytime.

When entering a missions players will be thrown into one of many maps to take on their, loaded with re-spawning enemies and items to find, but this isn’t your typical side-scrolling shooter. Players will be placed at a random point on the stage, and be able to freely explore the map. This is what keeps the game feeling fresh, as players will never feel like one map is ever the same.

Like I mentioned, enemies will be everywhere, and if you backtrack to an area, the enemies will have re-spawned. This helps the game feel like maps are not so empty, and is very satisfying and frustrating at the same time. The frustrating part is that sometimes during collecting missions some big enemies feel like they just get in the way and shouldn’t have the abilities to re-spawn, as they take some time to defeat. Other than that, the core gameplay is addicting.

Weapon crafting is back and with some new knives and gun parts to discover. If you are a player that likes to collect items and craft items, Mercenary Kings Reloaded Edition has a lot of crafting options for you. Players will collect items and craft new weapons and parts which will change how you gun works, or how far your knife will reach. This mechanic gave the game a huge amount of replay value.

Verdict

Mercenary Kings Reloaded Edition is a perfect revisit to the title, and holds its guns up high. The title is also a perfect fit for its first appearance on the Nintendo Switch. I really recommend players who haven’t played the previous title to give Mercenary Kings Reloaded Edition a try, and veterans to revisit the title. This title is certainly a game to check out, and I give Mercenary Kings Reloaded Edition a 7/10.