B.A.T.S. Bloodsucker Anti-Terror Squad Review | Screen Rant
It once seemed as though anything could be turned into a Saturday morning cartoon. While Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles became a pop culture phenomenon that grew far beyond its comic book roots, there are plenty of other examples that have faded with time, such as animated horror fun like Mummies Alive. Enter B.A.T.S. Bloodsucker Anti-Terror Squad from animation veterans Yoram Benz and Matt Schwartz: the would-be cartoon horror fans wished had been around when they were growing up.
B.A.T.S. Bloodsucker Anti-Terror Squad focuses on a world-saving team of super-powered vampires, who battle against the evil STING terrorist organisation. The five person squad, led by Count Bloodvayne, must traverse five levels to try and defeat the evil Scorpion Supreme and drink an awful lot of blood along the way. Framed as a throw back to the side-scrolling platformers of the 1990s, B.A.T.S. blends the story of G.I. Joe with a caffeine-fuelled variant to Rolling Thunder.
More than just a straight homage, though, B.A.T.S. does have a bit of bite to it. The game acts as a bastardisation of the kids cartoons and accompanying video games of the 1980s and 1990s, complete with crude humor, irreverent moments, and regular winks to the audience to not take it too seriously. Even its structure harkens back to the games of old, with the player rescuing a new member of the squad at the end of each level in a move reminiscent of the underrated Bucky O'Hare NES game.
Those characters also have a lot of charm, with several working as pastiches of existing vampires from pop culture like Dracula, Nosferatu and Blade. Each of them plays in a slightly different way, with three close-combat fighters with individual power-ups, one sword-wielder, and one long-range shooter. The characters all have a back and forth with the constantly irate Scorpion Supreme, adding to the wacky humor of the game.
B.A.T.S. may look just like a 16-bit platformer, but its gameplay is a little bit more modern. The game is extremely fast-paced with an emphasis on flowing combat and speed, feeling closer to titles like Not A Hero than classic side-scrollers, with a focus on memorisation and one-hit kills akin to Hotline Miami. That's not the only similarity, either, as B.A.T.S. also has buckets of blood and a thumping soundtrack, albeit with a much lighter tone than the Dennaton Games title.
Unfortunately there are a few problems that slow down B.A.T.S. in spite of its need for speed. Collecting blood drops is essential for both health and power ups, but these don't immediately drop when an enemy is killed, meaning the player will have to wait until they properly spawn - which means losing fluidity or hanging about for precious seconds in a dangerous area. Meanwhile, some characters make the gameplay too jarring for comfort, such as the shotgun-shooting Rick Ghastley who needs to stand still to shoot and reload.
There was also one serious technical issue that slowed down progress. Certain stages within the third level seem to cause the game to crash on the Nintendo Switch, meaning progress is reverted back to the start of the level as a whole. It's unclear if this is a wider problem, and it wasn't the worst video game bug, as after several tries the level could eventually be completed, but it was nonetheless frustrating to have to restart the game regularly.
As such B.A.T.S. is a bit of a mixed bag. Its presentation is fantastic, with well-devised sprite work and a strong sense of humor throughout, and when the game does flow at the speed it needs it is an awful lot of fun for its short run time. However, those awkward design choices and more difficult technical issues do hold it back from reaching its full potential.
B.A.T.S. Bloodsucker Anti-Terror Squad is out now for PC, PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch. Screen Rant was provided with a Switch download code for the purposes of this review.