Review: Mr. Shifty is Hotline Miami With Teleportation Powers

Platforms: PC (reviewed), Nintendo Switch

Developer: Team Shifty, TinyBuild

Rating: T

MSRP: $14.99

Introduction:

Indie publisher TinyBuild is known for simple to grasp, yet surprisingly fun games such as SpeedRunners, No Time To Explain, and Streets of Rogue. They’re also the Publishers of the upcoming Hello Neighbor. Their genres vary from game-to-game, but they all have that same “fun factor”. Mr. Shifty is no exception.

Right out of the gate, Mr. Shifty is immediately reminiscent of Hotline Miami. Top-down movement, swing-open doors, one-hit kills, etc. This is not a bad thing. In fact, it’s a great thing. It takes what was good about Hotline Miami and adds a sort of super power. The protagonist, Mr. Shifty, is a silent, smooth protagonist who hates guns. Or perhaps he just likes punching enemies. He also has the power to teleport, or shift, short distances. This comes in handy when fighting an enemy with a gun when you can only take one hit.

Jump in, kick butt, jump out.

Mr. Shifty takes place entirely in a tall skyscraper. Each level is a new floor, breaking the action up into bite-sized pieces. Although this was reviewed on PC, the advantage of having a quick-play downloadable title on the Nintendo Switch is very apparent here.

A typical encounter goes a little like this: Shift into a room, punch Mr. Mc Pistolman twice, shift out before his friend can get a bead on you. Jump back in, punch that guy’s lights out, then move on. Mr. Shifty is all about momentum and thinking on your feet. You can get the jump on enemies at first, but once you ambush them, they know you’re there and will search you out. It’s all about figuring out who to attack first, and how to thin out the enemy numbers after that.

There are a number of ways to take out enemies, including punches, smashing doors into them, picking up a melee weapon and smacking them with it, or even getting them to shoot each other. They’re goons, they’re not too bright. Beating up a room full of thugs using teleporting powers without getting a single scratch on you feels really good.

Being that you have one hit, the checkpoint system is really forgiving, only setting you back maybe a minute or so. The game is 18 levels long, and while the levels can be action-packed, it does leave you wishing for more variation.

You do the same thing a lot, even though it feels good.

Despite the various ways you can take out enemies, the levels are more-or-less set up for you to tackle the area a certain way, or at least with a general strategy in mind. It’s exciting and moves so fast that you may not notice it until about halfway through the game though.

The game does offer up new weapon pick-ups periodically. A wooden pole or mop can be used to swipe at multiple goons at once, which comes in handy when they’re grouped together. Once that gets played out a bit, you start finding statues with tridents. You can throw the statues head for a one-chance ranged attack, and then take the trident to skewer dudes into a wall.

In the end, though, it’s just another way to tackle a room. Not bad, and the switching up of weapons is definitely appreciated, but the variation is a little lacking still. We’re still running into a room, fighting dudes, and hitting a button.

The puzzles are also too easy at times, while others can be frustrating, but only because getting the AI to do what you want can be finicky. There wasn't a puzzle that stopped progress altogether like some puzzle games, but when you go from easy-peasy to "Come on, just shoot the barrel!" it's a bit jarring.

For the right price, Mr. Shifty can be a fun time.

The game isn’t huge. It takes about 3-4 hours to complete without much in the way of replayability or other modes to play. The short time with Mr. Shifty is fun though, and simply making it longer would make the cracks show on its repetitive nature.

It ultimately comes down to price. $14.99 seems a bit high for what the game is, whereas I’d be comfortable throwing about $10 down for the experience. That may be splitting hairs, but there’s really nothing else to do in the game after those 3-4 hours are up, besides playing it all again.

Game length and price aside, if you like Hotline Miami and think it needed a side of superpowers, Mr. Shifty is the ride for you.