Cobalt Review (PC)

Side-scrolling brawlers have delighted generations of gamers throughout the years, but few have managed to really make an impact in terms of mechanics, tone, or gameplay variety.

Cobalt, coming from Oxeye Game Studio and published by Mojang, promises to be such an experience. Blending a tongue-in-cheek story with easy-to-understand but hard-to-master mechanics, the title has been a long time coming, and now it’s finally available on the PC, Xbox 360, and Xbox One platforms.

Does Cobalt manage to make a lasting impression or should its adorable robots be scrapped for parts? Let’s find out.

Story

Cobalt approaches its story with a pretty outlandish tone, setting it in a sci-fi universe where the humans have disappeared, and robots are left to roam various planets and solar systems. You control such a robot, part of a peace-keeping force that’s sent to investigate various distress signals.

During your journeys, you encounter a variety of evil robots, from regular ones to “ninjas” and other varieties. You also get to interact with different animal hybrids that can help you in your journey by acting as meat shields or trusty mounts.

While the story has a bit of complexity to it, it’s delivered with a tongue-in-cheek approach that may or may not succeed, depending on the player. Even so, you’ll have things to explore in the Story mode.

Multiplayer action in Cobalt

Gameplay

While Cobalt’s story maintains a light tone, its gameplay is serious business. The title retains classic side-scrolling brawler mechanics. You can run, jump, roll, slide, and perfect all sorts of other movements to get across the environments. You can also wield melee weapons, ranging from fists to pickaxes or wrenches, not to mention actual guns such as pistols, machine guns, and other such things. Lastly, you are also able to throw things, from grenades to vials of chemicals and so on.

Knowing which items to use at what point in time is crucial in the story campaign unless you want to constantly go back to your previous respawn station. Juggling between items is pretty intuitive, and you get to find new ones throughout your journey by destroying foes and objects.

Actual combat relies a lot on momentum. Jumping about is advisable in order to make your tiny robot harder to hit, as is rolling, as this procedure can deflect bullets while automatically aiming at a nearby foe. This may sound a bit tricky, and it does take a while to nail down the timing required to evade projectiles, but the tutorial does a good job of explaining things. Once you start to roam around the battlefield, you’ll find Cobalt to be a highly enjoyable experience with a very high skill cap.

The game isn’t just about destroying foes in chaotic battles, as the campaign also features quite a few other mechanics such as hacking or lock picking. These aren’t covered by the tutorials, sadly, so you need a bit of trial and error before you figure out what you need to do. In terms of hacking, you need to guide a spark, which moves in a single direction until it reaches an obstacle, into the necessary goal.

Lock picking is more varied, as some things can be unlocked by hitting a button when an exclamation mark appears on the screen. Others, however, rely on you moving dots in order to hit a specific chime. While these mechanics do keep things varied, they aren’t always intuitive in their nature, and some players might get frustrated until they figure out what exactly they need to do.

Dialog in Cobalt

Multiplayer

Besides going through the story campaign, either alone or with a friend via co-op, players can also enjoy a variety of competitive modes in Cobalt. Some can be played alone, with friends taking turns, or with bots, not just other real-life players. Some are simple, like a wave-based survival mode, while others rely on speed, agility, or combat.

There are also game types like the classic Deathmatch, not to mention Plug Slam, which is similar to Rocket League, only more deadly. Special mention goes to Team Strike, which can get quite intense.

Visuals and sound

Cobalt uses a great visual style that blends vibrant colors with more subdued ones to create a memorable experience. The action is fast and fluid, and you can get around pretty easily.

The soundtrack is quite good, and the effects are varied. There’s not much more to say, however, as there’s no actual voice acting.

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The Good

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Conclusion