Blazing Chrome

My first session with Blazing Chrome ended in roughly ninety minutes, a string of colourful swearing, and an immediate second playthrough. That loop - short, brutal, addictive - is exactly what JoyMasher designed, and it works. This is a side-scrolling run-and-gun built from the ground up to channel the DNA of Contra: Hard Corps and Metal Slug, and it pulls that off with more honesty than most retro-revival attempts dare. You pick one of two starting characters: Mavra, a human resistance soldier, or Doyle, a punk cyborg with a mohawk who has been reprogrammed to fight for the good guys. Mechanically they are identical, which means the character select screen is basically cosmetic - but it also means a second player can drop in for local co-op without anyone arguing about who gets the "better" loadout. You both share the same toolkit: a default machine gun that fires in eight directions, a roll-dodge with invulnerability frames, a close-range melee strike for when things get uncomfortably crowded, and up to three collectible weapons - a grenade launcher, a charge laser, and a plasma whip. The grenade launcher is dominant to a fault; reviewers and players agree it outclasses the other options by a significant margin, which is a mild balance frustration in an otherwise tight package. Three assist bots can also be collected per stage: the attack bot doubles your firepower, the defense bot soaks two extra hits before breaking, and the speed bot gives you a double jump and faster movement. Lose a life and all of it drops - very much old-school, very much intentional. The six missions are not just flat corridors of enemies. Hoverbike sections scroll you through auto-scrolling gauntlets with pits and roadblocks that feel closer to Battletoads than Contra. Mech suits allow you to stomp through areas with a machine gun arm or a drill, and there is a sprite-scaling tunnel shooter sequence that channels Space Harrier in ways that genuinely impress. These variety segments keep the pace from feeling samey, though they are each over quickly because the whole campaign is over quickly. One skilled playthrough lands between one and two hours; a less experienced run sits around two to three. That brevity is the game's loudest honest criticism. Beating it on Normal unlocks melee-only characters Raijin and Suhaila, a Boss Rush mode, and a Mirror mode that flips every level layout, but if score-chasing and mastery runs are not your thing, replay value thins out fast. On the accessibility side: three difficulty settings are available, with Hardcore locked behind a Normal clear. Easy and Normal both offer unlimited continues and checkpoints that respawn you partway through a stage rather than booting you back to the beginning - a concession that makes the game meaningfully more forgiving than its inspirations without defanging the challenge. Even so, some enemies have attacks that blend into the pixel noise, leading to deaths that feel earned by the game rather than by you. The hitboxes draw consistent complaints from critics, and a couple of encounters demand specific weapons or the melee strike in ways that feel arbitrary. None of it is gamebreaking, but it does remind you this is a love letter rather than a refinement. For four players on the couch? Blazing Chrome is local co-op only - no online - and supports two players, not four. Worth flagging before you plan a session. For two players though, it genuinely shines: shared chaos, screaming at hoverbike sections, and passing a controller after a run ends are all peak living-room experiences. The FM-synth soundtrack is great, the CRT filter options let you tune the visuals from crisp to lo-fi, and the pixel art nails the Sega Genesis aesthetic without feeling lazy about it. If you have any affection for this genre, Blazing Chrome earns its place in your library - just go in knowing it is a tight, sharp, short ride rather than a sprawling one. Riley, Scout Team