Mars 2120 (Nintendo Switch) Review

Space, the terrifying frontier. Where man, no matter what those dreams may be, was meant to venture. And Mars, perhaps the greatest of mankind’s aspirations, is possibly the most terrifying place of all. Well, so sayeth all entertainment media! And while DOOM has preached the values of leaving Mars alone for years, Mars 2120 sends us there once more to confront the unknown.

In Mars 2120, humanity has finally established a scientific outpost on Mars. But in tried-and-true fashion, communication with the outpost is lost and you are sent there to figure out what’s gone wrong. As a lone soldier, you crash land on the Red Planet, and it isn’t long before the copious evidence of nasty shenanigans at the outpost make themselves known. The story is told primarily through environmental storytelling, by the damage and corpses around you and, of course, the audio logs littering the outpost. The story isn’t innovative, but it does have a bit of pulpy fun going for it.

When it comes to the gameplay, Mars 2120 is yet another Metroidvania gracing our screens. Where most games err on the Castlevania side of the genre, Mars 2120 finds its identity in the first part of the genre. There’s a lot more Metroid in Mars 2120 than anything else. All the basics are here: large, interconnected biomes split up by the need for new abilities, a constant supply of weapon and character upgrades, and plenty of enemies and gigantic bosses to defeat. Thankfully, the core mechanics are quite solid with regard to both platforming and combat, with environments designed to make sure you’re double-jumping and blasting your way through the entire time.

Ranged combat makes up the bulk of your playstyle, but there’s also a fairly decent melee combat system based around directional moves and combos, bringing a bit of fighting game flair to the proceedings. Ranged combat and movement abilities are based around finding new “Cores” in the environment – each corresponding to elements like electricity, fire and ice, which morph your standard gun into different forms: think a shotgun for ice blasts, an automatic rifle for electricity, and a flamethrower for fire.

Enemy designs are based around Cores as well, with each being afflicted by or immune to a specific Core. To help you best the toughest foes, your weapon Cores can be upgraded as well, opening up new offensive abilities and boosts, such as faster reloads, more damage, and charged shots.

The game gives you a double jump from the get-go, doling out new movement abilities with each Core upgrade found. The electric dash is great for crossing large gaps, but it also lets you teleport dash through enemies, leaving a damaging energy trail behind you. This sort of interplay between systems goes a long way to making both combat and navigation more fun.

Less interesting is the way in which you activate your upgrades. Each enemy killed gives you experience to buy upgrades with but, before you can do that, you have to find the upgrades in the world and then travel to a save station to activate it. Most Metroidvania’s just activate new abilities as you get them, but Mars 2120 gives you unneeded busywork – sending you back to save stations before you return to push forward. This system is particularly problematic if you die before hitting a checkpoint or the save terminal, because then you’ll have to find and install it again.

Talking checkpoints, they’re also a bit problematic. While they’re much needed, they record your current state as is. So, should you hit one with only a sliver of life left and then die, when you respawn at the checkpoint, it will be with that same sliver of life. A huge pain when you’re about to encounter a boss.

Now, while the game doesn’t try to innovate on the core mechanics, it does have a great sense of style, usually in the form of cinematic presentation. Mars 2120 attempts to be an action movie in playable form, bringing plenty of spectacle to the table to complement those fun, solid mechanics. Bosses are presented cinematically, many of them screen-filling behemoths with multiple phases, and there are environmental action scenes that double-down on the game’s cinematic stylings.

Visually, the Metroid influence, specifically that of the recent Metroid Dread, comes through in the art direction, with many outposts use of stark whites reminding me of Dread’s opening moments. The visuals are clean and there’s some great environmental detail, but on Nintendo Switch, it can feel compromised by the low resolution. While the game ran well, the dynamic resolution was very noticeable, with more busy scenes taking a noticeable drop in sharpness and clarity. It also impacts the protagonist’s design, whose outfit changes colour depending on the Core equipped, with details looking jaggy and indistinct when the camera zooms too far out of the resolution takes a dive.

One last technical issue worth noting on the Nintendo Switch are the long load times. Whether you’re firing up the game for the first time, loading into the game itself, between areas, or respawning, the load times are lengthy.

Wrapping up, Mars 2120 doesn’t innovate on the Metroidvania genre in any notable way. Instead, it relies on the genres well defined mechanics and some pulpy charm to create a fun, Metroid-inspired adventure that I enjoyed more and more the longer I played.

Mars 2120 was reviewed on Nintendo Switch using a code provided to gameblur by the publisher. It is also available on PC, Xbox One/Series S|X, and PS4/5.