The SHUMP genre is one full of legends and greats of all types. From silly to serious, from WWII to future shooter, we have it all. But one style that seems to be falling away by the wayside is the side-scrolling shooter, almost completely overshadowed by the vertical shooter. Well, Dogfight: A Sausage Bomber Story looks to the past, in both style and gameplay, in order to craft a fun, funny, and frantic shooter that can be enjoyed with up to four friends!
Dogfight: A Sausage Bomber Story is a welcome offering and feels a lot like U.N Squadron if its story were a bit less serious. It’s bright, colorful, and features more than a lot of other SHMUPs in terms of replayability. So many SHMUPS are a blast, but I don’t often go back to them as other than trying to perfect a run, there really isn’t a lot to work with. Dogfight: A Sausage Bomber Story tries to address this with a built-in speedrun element, the ability to play with a group of friends, and an unlock system that encourages to go back and replay stages with new unlocks in order to build up your arsenal that comes in at around 250 different combinations.
In a traditional save-the-world scenario you take to the skies in WWII inspired planes in an alternative universe where the Great War was about sausages (your bombs in the game) and a new threat from what looks like the bad guys from the Killzone series. You pick your craft with its own base ability and blast away at enemy crafts that stand in your way. But it’s how you do this where the interesting bits come into play.
Unlike more traditional side-scrolling SHMUPs you won’t simply see all the action moving towards you from the right to left of the screen. You have the ability to flip your craft to the left and attack enemies from behind you. Sometimes craft will circle you, sometimes they come from the rear, or you simply might want to push through attacks to get a clear line of fire to their rear. It’s a fun aspect to the basic shooting that makes you think a little bit differently than a standard shooter where everything simply flows in a single direction.
Along the way you’ll be collecting medals from certain kills which then adds to your total score for each stage. Get a high enough score and you’ll unlock a new weapon from the shop that you can then install before any given stage. This means that you’ll be really aware of not only taking out as many enemies as you can, but also maneuvering through bullets in order to pick up the medals. It’s a pretty fun way to encourage the player to fight and take chances in order to help open up the games combat.
Aside from the medals you can also pick up power-ups to help in combat. You can buff your basic shot by taking down bonus ships, you can pick up orbs that serve as extra canons that follow you, and you can even pick up health regeneration power-ups that refill your health. It’s pretty nice playing a shooter like this where it isn’t a one-hit death situation. I’m all for grinding and working to beat a SHMUP, but there are times when I simply want to experience an adventure and Dogfight: A Sausage Bomber Story allows this while still making subsequent replays fun too.
Dogfight: A Sausage Bomber Story is crammed with a lot of fun extras that will keep you coming back, or pulling out when you get a bunch of friends over to a fun game night. The cartoony visuals are charming and make everything easy to see even during stressful situations. There are times later in the game when some stages are a bit visually overloaded, especially when four players are on the screen, but most will still find it manageable, especially coming from other SHMUP games.
For some 2D shooter action, Dogfight: A Sausage Bomber Story fits the bill perfectly. It might be a bit on the easy side for experienced SHMUP players, but for those wanting a fairly low stress shooter with a silly story that proves a few laughs, Dogfight: A Sausage Bomber Story is a solid choice on the Nintendo Switch while on the go.
Final Score:
Dogfight: A Sausage Bomber Story
DEVELOPER: Katsu Entertainment LLC
PUBLISHER: Hound Picked Games
RELEASE DATE: Apr 13, 2023
PRICE: $17.99
REVIEWED ON: Nintendo Switch
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