Getting to grips with the game is simple enough, although we should point out that you can expect to get your ass kicked during your first few games as more experienced players will take you out before you finish dipping your toes into the water. ![]() The twin-stick controls are smooth, making for a game that is satisfying to play. There is a ‘fog-of-war’ style mechanic present as well and you’re not able to see items or enemies that aren’t in your line of sight, making for a rather tense experience despite the game’s cute outward appearance. Camping on the outskirts of the map while you’re waiting for the player count to drop isn’t an option either, as a cloud of ‘skunk gas’ is slowly enveloping the island, forcing players to move towards the center. After you’re dropped on the island, you’ll need to start looking for equipment and take down any opponents that cross your path. If you’ve ever played a battle royale game, you know what to expect. Super Animal Royale is free-to-play and up to 64 players can duke it out during a match, with crossplay support. The main difference is that the game is presented in 2D, from a top-down perspective, whereas most of the battle royal behemoths opt for presenting their game as a 3D 3rd-person game. When a match starts, you’re dropped on the game’s island arena from a flying bus, Fortnite-style. The game isn’t shy about taking inspiration from its direct competitors. The title pretty much gives away what Super Animal Royale is about: it’s a battle royale game that sees adorable animals take on one another in bloody multiplayer matches until a single player is left standing. It’s far more important to be able to hear your opponent coming, rather than having a catchy tune playing in the background. On top of that, if you’re focused on surviving the cute critter onslaught, you want as few distractions as possible. This is one of the rare cases where it doesn’t really matter though, as the game itself is exciting and tense enough. There is no voice acting present, and the music is generic and forgettable. There isn’t a whole lot that can be said about Super Animal Royale’s soundscape. This is a case where simple visuals make for a more enjoyable experience than highly detailed graphics an example of how “less is more” can work. On the plus side, when the game runs smoothly, it looks fantastic. Things are fairly zoomed out, so we recommend playing Super Animal Royale on as big of a screen as possible, as it can be difficult to make things out -especially text. The game continuously displays your ping in the top right corner too, so if there is an issue with your own connection, it should be fairly easy to spot. Of course, the cause of these performance drops isn’t always clear, as a lot depends on the setups of other players, but it’s annoying enough to mention here. ![]() Even so, we noticed lag and stutters more often than we would have wanted, with the frame rate dropping below an acceptable level occasionally. ![]() Naturally, you don’t want a game’s performance to suffer because the visuals are too taxing. We understand the need for the simplistic graphical style, as the game is essentially connecting 64 players from around the world. There’s no actual blood involved, which makes sense as the game is trying to appeal to as broad of an audience as possible. With its Funko Pop-like animal designs and soft colors, Super Animal Royale succeeds in making essentially gruesome deaths look adorable. We imagine that any future seasons may offer various “themes”, as is typical with games like this, though whether or not that means the introduction of narrative elements isn’t sure of course. The island that the bloody deathmatches take place on is host to a (now abandoned) safari park -which explains the various species running amuck there. While there isn’t a real narrative present in Super Animal Royale, the game attempts to flesh out its world somewhat through its setting. Does Super Animal Royale hold its own or is this a battle royale you wouldn’t want to be caught up in? ![]() After having spent some time with the Switch version of Pixile’s top-down multiplayer title, we’re now ready to deliver our verdict. Still, there was something about Super Animal Royale’s cute animal player avatars that drew us in. We were initially sceptical, given that the free-to-play battle royale market is oversaturated, thanks to the success of genre titans like PUBGand Fortnite. Although Super Animal Royale has been kicking around on PC in Early Access since 2018, it was only last month when the “full” version debuted, alongside the PlayStation and Switch versions of the game.
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