Dyna Bomb has got the looks of a mobile iOS game and yet it originally came out on PC before then released on iOS and Android devices and also on consoles. It is a platformer developed by 7 Raven Studios where it has explosive gameplay the description says that it is the greatest arcade style action game and for the cheap price which is £4.99 it shouldn't be all that awful right? If the description box says that Dyna Bomb is that great than the developers have so got it all wrong as instead Dyna Bomb is a difficult and incredibly frustrating experience with atrocious gameplay and mechanics that is likely going to make your head explode.
Let's talk about the positives, well about the only ones I can think of anyway. The game doesn't look all that bad for a cheap downloadable game and you honestly can't expect too much out of it. The character and enemy sprites are detailed and the explosions look nice even though the animations are stiff. The music is actually good with some cool stand out cheery tunes here and there and they are pretty good to listen to. When the game decides to be fair and allow you to see the background which doesn't look all that bad either is where Dyna Bomb makes itself a rather decent-looking and sound game.
Here is where the positives end and when we go into the negatives and that is the gameplay. Dyna Bomb is split up between eight worlds that have eight stages to complete before you move to the next world. The game plays as a 2D platformer where you go through each stage collecting a key that unlocks the level exit, letting you move on while you collect diamonds while occasionally picking up Dragon Balls as well. You also have to deal with enemies and avoid getting hit by attacks and obstacles, sound simple enough? Well guess what it isn't. You have bombs that you use to attack enemies but the bombs are limited and there are a couple of bomb pickups that you find on each level. You also have a jetpack for getting around each of the game's levels as well as finding portals that can take to another part of the level. The controls aren't bad and it would seem pickup and play but the level design suffers from horrendous design that makes the game way too hard. From enemies like ground robots, turrets, spike drones and flying drones to obstacles and traps such as spikes, electrical fields and fire alongside ice breathing faces, it may not start out too bad but when you complete the first few levels in the first world the game's difficulty gets hard way too fast.
You die in one hit and it is easy to get hit by an enemy or an obstacle that you didn't know or realize was there and many of the levels throw all kinds of traps and enemies to deal with that don't make circling around them easy or trying to avoid getting hit. Many of the later stages increase the number of enemies and traps that you have to be careful of and trying to avoid even getting hit is all down to trial and error. There are even levels that are just ridiculously cheap and unfair where they place bomb pickups on top of a spike trap that will pop out and hit you without warning and this is bound to make a lot of players frustrated and annoyed when this happens, same goes for collecting diamonds where you could collect dozens of them and then all of a sudden, a spike trap gets you. This kind of thing is just an outright bad design that doesn't seem fair because you never know what's going to happen until you try to pick up the items and you are going to be dying a lot because of it. You also die a lot because of the bad placement of enemies where they can fly in to touch you or fire a number projectiles at you which makes dodging them a pain. There are just times you are never given a breather to think about how you are about to tackle the level before enemies attack you. You just have to playthrough the levels over and over and just pray that you manage to get through it unscathed. Even if you somehow manage to get through the majority of the level avoiding all of those annoying traps and taking out the enemies there is one more obstacle to deal with and that is the time limit, the game gives you barely enough time to get you through the level and with the number of ridiculous traps and enemies you might as well just get the item to unlock the exit and just finish the level.
You can spend diamonds that you've collected on power ups that allow you to go faster, allow you to take two hits, fire straight, have more ammo upon pickup and have more time. There is also a slot machine minigame where you get some more power ups to use including unlocking invisibility. Also, when you die you can optionally use diamonds to continue the stage from where you just died at. Two things though, one it costs five hundred diamonds per continue and also every time you use a continue the game annoyingly pauses and you have to hit the resume to carry on where you died without accidentally hitting restart. That is really annoying.
Even with power ups the game can still prove to be absolutely frustrating and every time you die or complete the level with the power ups they are gone and you have to spend more diamonds just to get them again. When I was about half way through the game I started replaying the easier levels over and over again to grind for more diamonds just so that I can use them as continues for when I die and just try to breeze through the levels over and done with, even then I still die frequently. The last world throws every kind of enemy and trap that it can think of at the player and the difficulty doesn't become all about trial and error it becomes test of patience and endurance as in like how long are you willing to put the game's atrocious level design and unfairness before you just want to throw the controller in anger. I got so mad that I just wanted to go straight for the level completion after grinding for more diamonds to help me beat this mess of a game.
What is the reward for beating the whole game? NOTHING! That's right, nothing. No cutscene to show off my satisfaction of beating through an incredibly unfair game, no congratulations screen or whatever, just a menu telling me should I replay the stage again. So, you're telling me that I went through all that just for the game to say, ”Hey you beat it! Want to go again?” without giving me a satisfying ending for all of the trouble I went through. I can't even bother to go back to doing all of the levels and doing them all with perfect ratings to see if it will unlock anything special because chances are that it won't give you anything for doing so, not even an ending.
Dyna Bomb overall is a cheap and unfairly frustrating mess of a platformer that relays on the trial-and-error aspect as well as testing the player's patience and endurance rather than actual fair skill. The levels are atrociously bad in design and you are going to die constantly from the number of traps and enemies placed all over without care or thought. The power ups barely help and are wasted upon completion of one stage and death making diamond grinds just to get them a complete waste of time. Even if you do manage to put up with the terrible gameplay and design there is no satisfaction to be had with Dyna Bomb aside from a straight forward Platinum Trophy which is mostly gained within just 10 or so minutes of playing through this frustratingly excuse of a platformer that deserves to be blown up.
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Game Score: 4.0/10
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Game Title: Dyna Bomb
Platform: PlayStation 4
Developer: 7 Raven Studios
Genre: Platformer
Age Rating: PEGI: 3+
Release Date: 16th December 2021
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The Good Points:
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Presentation looks and sounds nice
Slot Machine Minigame
The Bad Points:
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Cheap, annoying, frustrating and unfair
You lose all powerups after level completion and death and have to buy them again each time
Horrendous level design with way too many obstacles and enemies that aren't easy to avoid
No ending reward for completing the game
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Reviewed by: Anthony Hayball (AQWBlaZer91)
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