RetroRealms: Halloween and Ash vs. Evil Dead Review – Gore Gets Groovy

Immortal evil in a Shatner mask, the grooviest chainsaw-handed hero, and a creepy arcade. RetroRealms Arcade brings together 16-bit platformers based on two of horror’s most iconic franchises: Halloween and Evil Dead. Wall jump, slice up demons, and collect tickets across a series of haunting levels inspired by classic movie moments. It’s a recipe for brutal fun, and for the most part that’s what WayForward Technologies cooks up. Like any good B-movie, RetroRealms: Halloween and Ash vs. Evil Dead is all gore, guts, and grins.

RetroRealms: Halloween and Ash vs. Evil Dead Review

Whether you’re playing as Michael Myers, Ash Williams, or DLC characters Laurie Strode and Kelly Maxwell, your goal remains the same: platform and murder your way through a series of cunning levels. Along the way, you’ll find new weapons and upgrades to give you an edge against the demonic entities of the Nightmare Realm. Between levels, you can explore the RetroRealm arcade, unlocking memorabilia and admiring your trophies in first-person. Also, you can bounce on a chainsaw like a flesh-rending pogo stick.

Story: Overlord Overboard

For once, The Shape isn’t the most terrifying villain in town. That honor goes to The Overlord: a monster that’s all eyes, chains, darkness, and sass. The Overlord rules the Nightmare Realm, and now he’s making it everyone’s problem. Depending on the character you choose, the game’s opening can go a few different ways. Play as Myers and you’ll come to in a familiar asylum. The Overlord has stolen Judith Myers’s tombstone and intends to play keep-away until Michael can take it back.

Other than a few end-of-level cutscenes, the bulk of the storytelling occurs through environmental design. You don’t need to have watched the original films (not you, Season of the Witch) or memorized Michael’s zodiac sign to appreciate the story, but it helps. Michael journeys from the asylum and junkyard to Haddonfield and beyond, while Ash leaves behind the solace of his trailer park in favor of a foreboding cabin in the woods. RetroRealms: Halloween and Ash vs. Evil Dead are made by fans, for fans, and levels are littered with cute references and in-jokes.

The Overlord story only exists to justify the action, which is honestly fine. If anything, this parchment paper plot harkens back to a lost age of horror, when films cherished vibes and grotesquerie over formulaic hero arcs. The story is good in the way that the stories of Re-Animator and Toxic Avenger are good: it is an engine that propels the action, and that’s all it needs to be. The RetroRealms premise trades on nostalgia to such a degree that you have to assume most players are already familiar with the basics anyway. That said, I’d have liked to learn more about The Overlord and the Nightmare Realm.

Related: Silent Hill 2 Remake Review – King of the Hill

The few dialogue sequences leave Ash and the others little time to express themselves, but when they do, it’s always fun. From Laurie’s youthful defiance to Ash’s sardonic quips and Michael’s elliptic silences, WayForward Technologies nailed the characterization. The same conversations can have radically different vibes when different characters are present. Replaying levels for a few new lines of dialogue doesn’t thrill me, but when the levels are already good enough to deserve multiple playthroughs, I’m here for it.

Gameplay: Getting Jumpy in the Nightmare Realm

As side-scrolling platformers, RetroRealms: Halloween and Ash vs. Evil Dead offer every mechanic you’d expect, along with a few grisly surprises. Although they share the same general moves, every character possesses unique items and powers. Better yet, you can play any character in any level. Myers can Shadowstep through enemies, I-framing his way through traps and blindsiding bosses on his way to disembowel them. Laurie, meanwhile, can double-jump, trivializing otherwise difficult platforming sequences. Later you can unlock character-specific moves, assuming you’ve scoured enough candies.

You can also shift between our world and the Nightmare Realm with the push of a button. This reveals secret passages, swaps human enemies for pulsating flesh monsters, and drenches everything with a Herschell Gordon Lewis-approved layer of gore. The Nightmare Realm is key for navigating otherwise impassable levels and collecting hidden tickets, but I wish more mechanics tied into it. The added layer of eyes, ooze, and dismembered bodies is no mere Snapchat filter, but it never feels fully integrated with the rest of the game.

Levels get tricky fast. By the time you’ve left the asylum and trailer park behind, you’ll need all the help you can get. That help comes in two main forms: weapons (more on those below) and upgrades. Between levels, you can cash in candy at the shop for a variety of bonuses. In addition to boosting your health, ammo count, and Nightmare Meter, you can also unlock new moves to expand your character’s lethal arsenal. This meta progression means even so-so platform players like myself can grind their way to B-movie supremacy, given enough time.

Weapons range from pitchforks and bombs to clothes-hanger boomerangs and time-slowing disco balls. They’re overkill for most enemies, although some of the Nightmare Realm’s tankier abominations won’t die easily without them. Their real usefulness only becomes apparent in boss fights. You can beat any boss with any character once you memorize their attack patterns, but their difficulty can vary widely. The biggest variable? Who you’re playing and what they’re wielding. Without spoiling any strategies, it’s fair to say some weapons all but trivialize otherwise difficult bosses.

Levels can be anything from spike trap and conveyor belt sequences to multi-baddie brawlfests. These designs don’t do much to innovate on platformer tradition, but RetroRealms squeezes plenty of fun from its core mechanics. Ash Williams treating zombies to the Goomba Pogostick treatment, chainsaw exploding heads and chests with every bounce, is something you don’t get anywhere else. The platforming could be tighter, resulting in some frustrating leaps, but the combat is crisp and fast. The boss battles, featuring some iconic cameos, are particular treats.

Related: 7 Games Steam Should Discount This Scream Sale For the Perfect Halloween

During levels, you’ll find hidden tickets which you can spend to unlock memorabilia in the arcade. The arcade trades 2D sidecrolling for something more realistic: a 3D environment you navigate in first-person. It’s the Haunted PS1 formula but without the eerie atmosphere and wannabe Crypt Keeper playing host. It’s a fun idea but a shallow one, dependent upon surprises and polish that RetroRealms simply doesn’t offer. The core gameplay is solid, but it’s disappointing that one of the game’s signature features is so lackluster.

Graphics & Audio: Pixel Polish

Michael Myers wall jumps, spins midair, and hurls a pitchfork into the chest of a straitjacketed patient, sending him flying. The Shape lands in a crouch, but his butcher knife is already spinning in his hands. He decapitates two nurses, then air dashes into an uppercut to finish off the nearby orderly. Blood explodes from their necks like Old Faithful if it were designed by Lucio Fulci. There’s the Halloween theme, pulse-pounding electronica, and the wet slap of showering blood. Bloodlust unslaked, The Shape raises a hand and shifts into the Nightmare Realm. He will teach the demons pain.

RetroRealms: Halloween and Ash vs. Evil Dead nail their art. The 16-bit horror vibes are immaculate, giving even generic zombies a ton of personality. As delightful as butchering your way to Haddonfield is, it’s almost as fun just seeing the sights. The level designers went all out, and it shows. Thanks to the artful use of parallax backgrounds and image layering, there’s always something going on behind the scenes. From trees swaying in the fog to zombies chomping on helpless survivors, these levels feel far more alive and flat-out cooler than those in most platformers.

The creepy locations feel spot-on, and the Nightmare Realm throws a campy bucket of gore over every level. The orange skies and entrail-strewn landscapes are eye-catching twists on their mundane counterparts. The Nightmare Meter limits how long you can spend in this aberrant alternate world, however. In some ways, that only enhances the Nightmare Realm’s appeal, as it remains an exception (if not a surprise) throughout the game. You can tell the devs had fun dreaming up the perfect places to squirrel away easter eggs and visual gags, and as a Halloween and Evil Dead fan, I’m stoked.

Though the arcade itself is drab and dull, the memorabilia collection is much more engaging. Props like Ash’s boomstick and Michael’s childhood clown costume are cool but superficial rewards. Do I want a lit display cabinet showing off my retro butcher knife? Yes, it’s beautiful, of course I do. Does it fulfill me though? Not really. RetroRealms‘s greatest flaw is that the arcade and playable levels never feel integrated. The arcade offers neither exploration nor immersion, just a hypnotist’s swaying watch, distracting me from all that nothingness.

Conclusion: A Legacy of Horror

I experienced few glitches and no crashes during my time with RetroRealms. Halloween and Ash vs. Evil Dead are movie theater popcorn. They don’t aim for culinary perfection; they’re comfort food, and they deliver. It’s a shame that RetroRealms doesn’t push the arcade gimmick further, but the experience inside the cabinets is great. RetroRealms is the ideal platformer to keep you company during spooky season even if its museum ages like a Halloween pumpkin. Just don’t let it know where you keep the butcher knives. Evil comes to PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, and Steam on October 18.

Review copy provided by Publisher.