This week Netto's Game Room was lucky enough to be a part of the Byte Breakers early access test.
The test was spread across two days, and gave us a look at the seven playable characters, the Battle Royale Mode, and the classic 1 v 1 "singles" mode. While the game is in it's early stages, the test allowed us to experience the main features of the game, and gave us the opportunity to submit feedback to help improve it before release.
Today I wanted to take a quick moment to not only explain the game, but go over my first impressions of it. While many may pass it off as a "Super Smash Bros Clone," I can say the game is unique enough to play on it's own.
The Basics of Byte Breakers:
At the start of each game, players are asked to pick from one of seven playable characters, each with their own unique skills and abilities. The game uses a familiar "A" for normal attacks and "B" for special attack setup, with B attacks also providing you an extra "jump" when holding up. (Yes, Smash Bros.)
Once you pick your character you are then thrown into the training ground, where the basics of the game are taught to you by floating signs, and objects you can interact with. This is actually important because the game uses switches, doors, grind rails, and other environmental objects that become key to survival, yet are typically not seen in a game like this. While it's not entirely apparent from the training grounds, things like doors require you to hold a button to open, and there's a count down while doing so. This means doors can block you off, and you will get attacked while trying to open them. Grind rails are also great ways to escape the outside edge of the screen, which will be closing in on you, but they can allow you to escape other players as well. As a Battle Royale, once you die here the game is over, so it's important to use these assets to play it safe.
In the actual matches, players are matched up into teams of two, and a total of forty players are thrown into the map. You get to select a starting position with your partner, with resources and boxes spawning in set locations for you to access. These boxes contain gear and items that can be used to help you, with different rarity levels of boxes providing you with better stuff. It's a familiar setup in the genre, but being used in a Smash Bros like game is a bit different. Some of these items are throw items, while others are guns or other usable objects, and some are simply there to heal you. As you do have a health limit in this game healing is important, but being knocked off of one of the death traps will end you as well. Thankfully dying in this game isn't fully the end of you, as partners can "pick you up" and take you to a revive station, but that can be easier said than done.
Ultimately whoever is the last team standing will be the winner, and thanks to the closing in wall you are always forced to make your way to the center of the stage. When you first start out the stage can be a bit confusing, but thankfully there are signs and goal posts that sorta direct you on your way. There's also an overall map to help you decide where to go/where you need to be, so the confusion didn't last too long.
As for the characters, each one is truly unique, and they all have their own play styles. Some are faster, others are slower. One character named Asher has an Up Special Attack that actually leaves a platform behind from where she jumped. Abilities like this can support your teammates, as they can then make use of such things themselves. There's also trap based characters, and those who are more suited for range attacks instead. It's a nice lineup overall, and it requires you to think about your strategy before you jump in. Currently it doesn't seem like any one character outclasses the other, which is nice to see in something like this.
Other basics include the ability to block and side step attacks, as well as grab and throw your opponents. Again, this is nothing new, but applied to the Battle Royale gameplay changes things quite a bit. Attack combos also seem to be a bit more "stiff" in the sense of how you need to plan out your strikes. Simply mashing A isn't going to work here, and that's a good thing in a game like this. It means players can't be fully "cheap" when taking you on, nor can you really trap someone against a wall (I tried). Using the right analog stick to automatically pull off the "Power Hits" from the A button did give me some easy kills, but if I missed it left me open... And eventually that did kill me.
Single Fights:
The classic 1 v 1 mode of Byte Breakers is what one might expect. In the test we only had access to a single stage, and it looked pretty "familiar" if I do say so myself.
This mode is a full on fighter mode, without any of the Battle Royale elements from the main game. It's just raw one on one fights, and whoever dies three times is the loser. It's a great way to test out the characters and their movesets before jumping into the Battle Royale mode, but it's very clear that this mode isn't the main focus of the test. In the future it'll most likely have items, stage hazards, and other features you might expect, but for now it is exactly as what you see above.
My Thoughts:
As the game currently stands, it is a lot of fun. I've enjoyed my two days testing it out, and I already know that I'll be playing the game when it officially releases. I liked the stage I got to play on for the Battle Royale Mode, and I love the thought of being able to play the 1 v 1 mode as well. As a huge fan of fighting games this one offers a lot for me to enjoy, but it's also something two days simply isn't enough to fully appreciate. During my time I mainly stuck to two characters, but I did give each one a chance; it just wasn't enough for me to fully dive into them and find the "perfect" one for me. But again, that's okay! I didn't expect to have a lot of time with a closed test, and I did have a lot of fun. Personally I'm excited to see what this game evolves into, as it has a lot of potential as it stands.
Going forward I can see them adding more 1 v 1 maps, adding additional Battle Royale maps, and including more game modes for us to try out. The template for a great game is here with a very solid foundation, and at this point in time, the sky really is the limit. Depending how the game is handled, I can see this one going for a very long time; especially once it releases to a wider audience on more than just PC.
Great job Odyssey Interactive! I can't wait to see what comes next.
For more, here's some screenshots I captured during my playtime.
Gallery:
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