Turbo Kid Review (Steam)

by Jim Smale · June 11, 2024

Turbo Kid Review, A nostalgic metroidvania adventure with insane weapons, skills, and pixel gore. Ride your BMX and blast your enemies as you discover the secrets of the Wasteland. This is the future, the world as we know it is gone. You are The Kid, a lone warrior on a journey to cross the Wasteland in search of hope. What you will find on your way however is a land riddled with scoundrels and creeps which you’ll have to go through – sometimes quite literally – to survive.

Turbo Kid Review Pros:

Decent pixel art graphics.
2.4GB Download size.
Steam achievements.
Full controller support.
Graphics settings – display mode, brightness slider, screenshake, freeze frame, menu glow, menu noise, and menu curve.
Supports keyboard.
Can remap controls for both the keyboard and the controller.
Gameplay settings – vibration, crouch toggle, aim toggle, spiked wheels toggle, and landing assist (all/fall only/none).
Accessibility options – attack strength, defense, more health, add cartridge slots, more health drops, and more scrap drops.
3 save slots.
Based on the film.
Two playable characters – Turbo Kid and Apple.
Old computer OS boot-up loading screens.
Action platformer gameplay.
Opening and ongoing tutorial video pop-ups.
Eight-way shooting.
2D perspective with animated backgrounds.
You have a handy button to stand still and aim your weapon.
Your notebook keeps tabs on tasks, indexes, encountered enemies, and characters.
The 80s feel to the game from the music to the colors and story.
Tight controls.
Multiple choice encounters.
A lot of nods to other games, shops, and locations.
The map fills in as you explore.
Save points can be found and triggering it causes a cool little animation where you sit down and play on a handheld.
Scrap is the currency of the game and can be found by breaking boxes, shooting enemies, etc.
Does neat little things like holding your charge shot light up a dark area.
Health bar system and you collect runs of food to replenish it.
Enemies respawn over time so you can farm scrap.
Collect heart pieces to increase your health bar.
There is no penalty or achievement lock for using the accessibility options.
Unlock fast travel warp points.
The animations, enemies exploding in particular are fantastic looking.
Your bike can be ridden and jumped off at any time, the bike can get upgraded and stick to walls, etc.
Ramps in the world and half pipes in particular require you to build up momentum on your bike so you can go higher. It’s really tight and offers a stable of moves and tricks to do mid-air.
Cartridges can be earned and found. Each cartridge has a buff or an ability tied to it and you can only have X amount equipped at one time but you can swap them out.
Fun little bits like taking part in races for Rewards.
Clever level design.
I really like how the bike and its movements are incorporated into platforming.

Turbo Kid Review Cons:

Can be hard to see doorways or hatches etc.
Cannot save when you want.
Scraps can drop behind boxes.
Has a bit of a wind-up until you feel like you can go out and do what you want and have a charity of tools.
Long initial load time.
Character interactions are not always ideal and restarting races for example is a pain.
At times it can feel very empty and you are just walking around not doing anything.

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