Coffee Crisis isn’t a new game to me as I actually own the original cartridge release that came out on the Sega Genesis. That’s right; I picked up the brawler as a new title for the ancient Genesis console. In that respect I loved what Coffee Crisis offered up on the classic console.

But because it was a cartridge game on a console older than most people reading this review, I cut the game a lot of slack in terms of features and controls. That said, this beat ‘em up looks as fantastic no matter on what platform you play it on.

But now that it’s on the Nintendo Switch I am getting a fresh look on this 90s inspired beat ‘em. More Streets of Rage than Final Fight, Coffee Crisis is a love letter to the days when beat ‘em ups were king of the arcades and consoles.

You can choose from two characters and you set out to save the world from an alien invasion. The story makes no sense, but that’s all part of the fun. You are two simple baristas beating up baddies with your bags of coffee beans.

Nick is the bigger and stronger one, while Ashely is the quicker smaller of the pair. It’s all by the numbers and feels like any other beat em up you’ve played back in the day. Enemies include all manner of alien and humans under their control. Each is unique and there are a ton of designs.

Some will take you on with punches and kicks, while others will toss projectiles keeping you on your toes. Coffee Crisis is a beautiful piece of pixel work and it’s always a joy to boot up the game for some fun because of this.

Controlling the pair is a little easier than it was on the Genesis which only had three buttons. In the Switch version you have more range and so there’s a button for attack, heavy attack which takes health away, jumping and picking up weapons, objects and enemies.

The combat system is a basic one and the game seems to really favor simplicity instead of placing huge focus on crazy combos or skills. It works, but it quickly feels repetitive, especially if you are playing alone. And with so many enemies you’ll really wish the combat was a bit deeper.

One major problem that creeps in, as it did on the Genesis release are the hit-boxes. Attacks connect just fine, but your range feels way too short when compared to enemies, especially when you are swinging a big old bag of coffee. If you don’t want to waste life with your heavy attack you are going to be face to face with enemies and almost always take damage.

Something like Streets of Rage isn’t a problem as you don’t normally get swarmed with enemies, but in Coffee Crisis you’ll often be inundated by dozens of enemies from the very first stage. This makes playing the game in single-player mode nearly impossible.

Instead of progressing to the right and battling enemies, you’ll often come along section that close off and drop in dozens of random enemies that will almost always lead to losing a life or two. It’s not a deal break if the game featured some deeper combat, but it simply doesn’t.

But Coffee Crisis, instead of tweaking gameplay for this release decides to add modifiers to make the game even harder. I’ll probably wager that nobody at the studio has ever beat the game on the highest difficulty with modifiers on.

What stinks is that some of the modifiers are really neat. Well, at least the ones that don’t mess with the difficulty of the game. It’s just no fun when you are playing and suddenly a dozen enemies show up out of the blue with projectile weapons you can’t avoid.

The visual modifiers though are a real treat. Getting to play with some old TV filters is nice, and some of the power-ups associated with them let’s you actually feel like you might survive more than a few levels, even though you probably can’t.

But the worst thing is that there are so many that you’ll never know what is going to happen next. Heck, you won’t even know that you’ve activated one. It’s random, sure, but all a bit too random for my liking. Everything just feels a little too wild and loose.

One great thing about Coffee Crisis and a huge upgrade from the original Genesis release if that fantastic music. The original Genesis-based tunes were fun, but the metal being pumped out now is downright amazing! It’s the sort of game that you’ll happily play the soundtrack of while out and bout.

It’s a fun experience over all, but one that is so by the numbers you’ll hate it. You’ll always want to play with Nick and you’ll be trying to bunch enemies together to beat them up in one swift go. If a few get loose you unleash a heavy attack to put them back into place. This repeats, and repeats, and repeats.

Yes, this is an old school beat em’ up, but the lack of depth means you’ll be relining on the few moves and techniques that work well across the board. There’s just not a lot of incentive to dig deeper into the mechanics with the basics will get you by just fine.

Coffee Crisis isn’t a bad game, just a clunky one that isn’t so easily forgiven when on a modern console. If you keep things on the easier difficulty levels and grab a friend you’ll have a fun night as the game isn’t all that long. If possible I recommend getting the cartridge if you still own a Sega Genesis for the best experience that works better thanks to limitations.

Final Score:

2.5/5

*A review copy was provided by the publisher*

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