Deadbeat Heroes

I came into Deadbeat Heroes expecting something tight and arcadey, and for the first few levels that promise mostly holds up. This is a movement-based 3D brawler set in a cel-shaded, jazz-funk version of 1970s London, where you punch, wall-run, and air-dash through waves of color-coded goons across 35-plus levels. The core loop is simple: chain wall-runs and dashes into punches to build combos, hit the score threshold, pass the level. The gauntlet mechanic is the real hook - when a super-villain shows up, you can steal their power by defeating them, temporarily unlocking abilities like a freeze ray, AoE blasts, or invisibility. In theory, swapping stolen powers mid-brawl should feel dynamic. In practice, you spend most of your time just rocket-punching dudes, and the stolen abilities never quite change the calculus the way they should. The scoring system deserves a mention for all the wrong reasons. The game grades you D through S on every level and locks further progress behind minimum scores, but nobody ever explains how the scoring actually works. You just fail, rewatch the unskippable level intro and enemy introduction cutscenes, and try again slightly less informed than before. That friction compounds later in the game where difficulty spikes hit hard and the punishment for failure means losing progress on missions you already cleared. Boss fights are their own issue: they isolate you in a room and make you grind for power orbs just to get a window to deal damage, which kills the momentum that the regular levels build up. The UI flow has a notorious problem that every reviewer flagged at launch. After completing a level, the game boots you straight back to the main menu. Every time. If you are playing local co-op, your partner has to rejoin from scratch. For a game built around couch multiplayer, that is a baffling friction point that should have been patched out years ago. The developer did respond to early feedback with at least one patch, but the core loop structure was not fundamentally changed. Where Deadbeat Heroes earns its keep is on a sofa with a second player and a low-stakes afternoon. Local co-op smooths over the design rough edges because the chaos is genuinely fun when you have someone next to you. The combat is beginner-friendly, the controls work well on a controller, and the visual style - bright comic-book colours, exaggerated animations, real London locations rendered in a loose cel-shaded style - gives it personality that a lot of budget brawlers lack. The jazz-funk soundtrack fits the 70s spy pastiche well. Enemies range from basic grunts to heavy gunners and grenadiers, and the boss move-sets vary enough to feel designed rather than copy-pasted. Solo, the cracks show faster. The level design is linear and repetitive across the campaign, the comedy leans hard on British cultural references that will fly over non-UK players' heads, and the lack of depth in the combo system means you hit a ceiling quickly. Critics landed around 60-65, and that spread is honest. There are better brawlers on PC. This one sits comfortably in the middle of the pack, charming enough when conditions are right, frustrating when they are not.

Fred · Scout Team

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