Beautiful bum bombing bunny brilliance! – David Darling, probably.
I’ve been looking forward to getting my hands on Murtop since the press release landed in my inbox a while back. These days with only having a small audience and not much energy I rarely push to play something early but I’ll admit, Murtop had me tempted for a while. Luckily, I managed to distract myself playing Zaga 33 for a ridiculous amount of time so the wait for Murtop’s release could have been worse.
Good news though! I’m happy to report that Murtop hasn’t disappointed me in the slightest. I kinda love it.
It’s Dig Dug x Bomberman, not in an abstract sense or a tenuous comparison, it is pretty much that. If you’re familiar with Dig Dug, the stage set up is instantly recognisable, just rather than having a lead with an inflation fetish, the main character in Murtop is a bunny who craps bombs (this is canon btw) and the bombs explode as they would in Bomberman. Dig Dug x Bomberman!
It’s a crossover that really works for me. I like but don’t love Dig Dug because I find the inflation stuff slows things down a wee bit too much for my impatient tastes and I like but don’t love Bomberman because it’s a wee bit too chaotic (or at least it is playing it with my kids). Murtop finds a nice middle ground between the two by taking the bits of each game I like the most and cobbling them together, slowing the parts that are a bit too fast and speeding up the bits I find too slow. And putting a bunny in it, obv.
Took me a few goes to get used to the timing (it’s tight) and to stop blowing my bunny up with its own arse but now I’ve settled into a nice rhythm on it where I’m dying correctly now – by my own complacency and daring rather than my own exploding anus – I’m starting to chalk up more points as I go and we all know what points make, yeah? (Prizes, it’s prizes)
Also, it’s really gorgeous. I’m rather fond of additional palettes in new arcade games on the best of days but the ones in Murtop are especially nice. The first couple on offer are fairly standard inclusions but the latter half of the palette choices do a great job of echoing a bunch of different arcade vibes. Good enough that I’m finding I enjoy switching them up between games rather than settling on just the one favourite as I invariably do.
Look, I don’t get to say this often enough but this is Locomalito levels of fantastic new arcade fun. Honestly, I haven’t got any greater praise than that.
I’m playing on Switch, other versions are available. Go play.
