Goliath Depot review

Some modern mechanics elevate timeless, arcade-style action

Given the emergence of games like Donut Dodo, Murtop, Cashcow DX, Annalyn, and Bumpy Grumpy, it’s like the golden era of arcade gaming never ended. Each of these titles eschews modern elements like an extended campaign and storytelling, effectively trimming things back to the essentials. And given the number of bloated blockbusters coming from publishers, this new wave of minimalistic thrills can be invigorating. And it’s especially gratifying if you’re burned out on full-priced experiences that arrive with an inventory of DLC.

Save for several modern traits, Goliath Depot nearly duplicates the experience of playing an arcade cabinet released amidst the mid-eighties. Much like many of yesteryear’s titles, the goal of the game is delightfully distinct: every stage tasks you will closing every open doorway before moving on to the next level.

The Thrill of Luring an Enemy into Environmental Death

Initially, you’re provided with a simple moveset to navigate across each single-screen collection of platforms, ladders, and elevators. Beyond a button assigned to shut a door, you can also hide in entrances, recalling the evasive strategy of Namco’s Rolling Thunder. Since slamming a door releases enemy-stunning shockwaves to the right and left, Goliath Depot sporadically lets you go on the offensive, eliminating perky foes. But defeated enemies tend to be quickly replaced, goading you into developing a simple pattern to limit susceptibility.

One of the first modern qualities you might notice is the game’s environmental variety. Unlike Donkey Kong’s cycle of four different levels, Goliath Depot offers a trek across forty playfields. Every tenth stage will task you with fighting a boss, which was also atypical for platformers of the era. And it’s here that Depot makes its only major misstep. While it’s possible to journey across the first nine stages of a world unscathed, you can quickly deplete your inventory of hit points during these showdowns. As you learn each bosses’ behaviors and tells, you’ll undoubtedly do better on subsequent playthroughs. But those first encounters are daunting. I’d argue that home games pioneered truly tough bosses with lengthy heath bars, rather than coin-ops.

Roguelike Assists

That said, Depot’s other anachronisms work in your favor. By collecting coins scattered across each level, you can purchase permanent power-ups that let you spring downward, double-jump, and provide you with the ability to dash. Smartly, developer Vidvad Games doesn’t let you break the game; you can only equip a single assist. Alternatively, coins can also be spent on continues.

There’s also a healthy number of unlockable items. Beyond being able to customize the look of George, Georgette, and the game’s five other playable characters, you’ll also earn a speedrun mode, harder difficulty level, and even a randomizer where you’ll face procedurally generated levels. Really the only thing that’s missing is leaderboard support, which was in the original Steam version of Depot.

VVVVVVery Referential

Enjoyably, the game has many of the distinctions that would catapult an arcade game toward critical and commercial success. Gradually, it adds new kinds of threats to its stages. The game’s introductory world, called “The Warehouse”, injects a pursuer that bounces around as well as an antagonist who targets the player with projectiles from the top of the screen. Later foes include shield-carrying cops, goading you into door slamming with precise timing.

Subsequent worlds grow even tougher with their intensified allocation of adversaries and fresh environmental dangers. With gimmicks like ice stages, gravity inversion, and color-coded keys, references to other games are plentiful. And that makes sense, as designers during the arcade era would often riff on their peers. Let’s hope that kind of interaction continues across this new wave of coin op-style titles. Arcade might be nearly extinction, but their spirit lives on in games like Goliath.

Goliath Depot was played on Switch with review code provided by the publisher.