Title: Attack of the Karens
Developer: Studio Primitive
Publisher: Flynn’s Arcade
Release Date: March 21, 2024
Reviewed on: Nintendo Switch

Introduction

Attack of the Karens is a bullet shooter roguelike that takes the Karen meme and makes a surprisingly straightforward and funny story.

Synopsis

You must defend your city from an alien threat that embodies people and turns them into cyborg Karen’s.

Analysis

Take flight as a member of KDF, (Karen Defense Force) in an upgradable ship and blast through the hordes of cyborgs to defeat the bosses. As you further your mission you can both temporarily and permanently upgrade the capabilities of your ship to try and improve each run through.

The gameplay 

When an alien pathogen reigns from the sky and encounters a few entitled humans it changes or alters them into cyborgs that enhance their Karen-like qualities. You must pilot Manager X-15 and take on four bosses with your teammate Amanda.

As you fly through the randomized levels you will shoot the enemy waves that want to take you out. While you try to decimate the cyborgs, a few things occur. The enemies will drop experience that will fill up a bar on screen. Once filled an orb appears and if you destroy it, it unlocks something for your ship or health. The bar will then reset, and you can continue to fill the bar and continue to get more upgrades. Since this is a roguelike game these upgrades last if you survive. Lose and you start back at the beginning. The second thing enemies may drop are microchips, use these dropped chips to permanently upgrade your ship between playthroughs. The enemies also drop hearts to replenish health and random temporary upgrades for the speed or size of projectiles.

When you start the game, the main screen shows a random order of the four bosses, Marva, Jordan, Tiffany, and Cassie. The tabs on the bottom of the start screen comprise of the following:

Launch – which obviously starts the game.

Upgrade – where you can use the microchips from within the game to upgrade your ship with twenty plus additions ranging from health and speed to damage and shields.

Modifiers – Where you can select a variety of handicaps, called Kurses, to increase difficulty or enhancements, called Kushions, to lessen the burden.

Options – which obviously lets you pick your preferences.

Quit – Not until we have prevailed, or our Switch runs out of battery life.

When you launch the game, it randomly puts you into a level with the first boss you saw upon launching the game. You will fight your way through obtaining the items and experience along the way. A bar that is on the right of the screen will fill up to indicate how far you are in the level. The halfway mark starts a mini-boss battle and once filled it will set off the boss battle. This bar will then become the boss’s health meter and once it depletes you will continue to the next level.

Each boss has a different personality which makes the fights interesting to partake in. Using different personas gives them unique boss fight elements to draw from. This was probably the most interesting portion of the level for me and it really stood out.

Attack of the Karens: Despite what you think with a game about Karens this game was fun. I had some initial doubts, but they were squashed by the addictive nature of the game loop it creates with its collecting of parts to upgrade your ship to then go farther and repeat until you succeed.

The voice acting within this game is good for a game that has game boy style of graphics. I’m not diminishing the work or type of game this is, but I want to commend the developers for this extra element in the game because it makes it pop more in this genre.

I appreciated the soundtrack on this game as well, which was no doubt, inspired by 8-bit chip tunes. The score was composed by Prince Primitive and is a variety of songs, which is also available to purchase on Steam.

This game had little downsides to it, the main issue which I had was since this is a roguelike game you have to keep going through the levels. Once you reach the boss you must hear the banter between the boss and Amanda which for the first few times was not terrible, but they do not have an option to skip this while playing. You can, however, in the options turn off the voice acting which would be amazing for after you completed the game, but if you are playing for the first time through you would miss out on future dialogue if you have it turned off. 

If you want something both addictive and over the top, try Attack of the Karens. The game will surprise you at how much fun you can pack into such an amazingly priced game that will cost less than a standard Karen haircut.  

Shane Kelley is a Senior writer for Boss Rush Network, as well as a writer for Another Zelda Podcast. His favorite game is The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. You can find him on Twitter to talk video games, Marvel, and axe throwing.

Sources: Taken by Author