Foul Play

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Foul Play is a fantastic looking, beautifully written brawler with a great gimmick that goes much deeper than simply putting an audience in the foreground and renaming the health meter. It’s long enough to tell a fun story, but not too long that it wears out its welcome. Backing up that gleeful imagination with a mechanic that encourages good rather than simply energetic play makes for a rare treat that both novice and veteran brawlers can enjoy while it lasts.

Voice-overs and sound effects provide a nice theatric atmosphere, which without a doubt is praise worthy. The character designs and in-stage activities are rather dull. It’s clear that the intention was to deliver an amusing presentation, but it wears off as the game struggles to maintain a balance between realism and theatrics. Undoubtedly, it’s a difficult combination to deliver. But Foul Play fails to reach the standard which both Puppeteer and Battleblock Theater have delivered in the past. It’s honest to admit that Foul Play is a fun game to play, but only lasts till it ends. There’s noth...

Foul Play has nice ideas and has been put together well by a team who are obviously huge fans of the genre. Unfortunately, there’s just too much repetition and too little variety for it to be much more than a throw-away, five hour experience. It quickly becomes tiresome, repeating the same objectives and defeating the same enemies by mashing the same buttons with no real pay-off for style, despite publisher Devolver Digital’s promise that the game “rewards performance over pummeling” when it does precisely the opposite. The theatre setting is the most intriguing part of this game and the Plati...

Foul Play plays the parts of both comedy and tragedy equally well. Funny, slick, and easy on the eyes, the game sure looks the part, but there’s simply not enough variety to the gameplay. Fun for a quick blast through, but you’ll be thinking about leaving well before the final curtain falls.