Candy Rangers Review

Multitasking is the name of the game in Candy Rangers as players pick the right bullet type, aim, and use a variety of moves to defend themselves from an onslaught of bullets. This might seem antithetical to the genre of on-rails shooters, which is known for giving one or two things to focus on as the stage auto-scrolls forward. Funnily enough, Candy Rangers‘ setup works surprisingly well, so read on as Cubed3 takes on the wild ride to explain why.

At surface level, it is really easy to judge Candy Rangers from the outset. Most gamers nowadays are not huge fans of auto-scrollers in their video games, and the graphical style feels outdated, with some really sharp and low-detailed retro-style art, as if it is merely there to evoke cheap nostalgia points. This, combined with a controller scheme that initially feels overly complex, makes Candy Rangers appear undercooked. However, after the first frustrating thirty minutes of getting used to the heavy multitasking it demands, the greatness of this game starts to surface.

Once familiar with the control, it becomes apparent that Mechano, the studio behind Candy Rangers, knew exactly what sort of sweets they were cooking in this colourful pot. After beating the first boss battle, the player feels ready to take on the worlds on offer. This is a surprisingly fair game for an on-rails shooter, with very little trial and error or other fake difficulty involved to get through the levels. At no point is it required to have prior knowledge of the courses to beat them, provided one plays cautiously, which is really refreshing. Especially as Candy Rangers comes with a life bar that serves as the time limit, and increases if the player plays well and decreases if they take damage.

To tie these two resources together is truly masterful and clever game design, as it does slightly punish those that take their time, but not more so than anyone would be by rushing. It is clever and really allows players to decide whether they want to live on the edge by pushing limits or play it cautiously, making any failings or successes feel like direct results of their own choices. Player agency is key, and it’s great to see it utilised to its fullest here.

While praise can be given to the game once the player is familiar with it, as mentioned earlier, the first thirty or so minutes are really off-putting, mostly due to regrettable design choices. The first and biggest issue is how Candy Rangers handles its hidden collectables. They function like the famous Power Stars from Super Mario 64 and are required to progress to new stages. The issue is that the game is extremely stingy with the number of objects that must be obtained early on. In the first world, there is leeway for a single one of these hidden medals to get to the first boss, which is, in turn, required to be beaten to move on to the future stages. To add insult to injury, some of these are obtained by defeating specific enemies rather than being visible in any way, shape, or form on the map, which, while good design for optional collectibles, feels horrible as required objects to collect in order to progress.

If this was something that was consistent throughout the entire game, it would feel like a weird, yet okay, design choice. However, this kind of tight progression locking is pretty much exclusive to the first world of the game, where the player is already busy mastering the very front-loaded learning curve. It is understandable that from a designer perspective they would rather focus on making late game levels that make use of all that Candy Rangers has to offer; however, there are too few early game levels, and the player is required to learn things way too quickly, forcing them to replay the first four to five levels more than anything else up until the final stages.

Later worlds are, in contrast, far more lenient with skipping medals, and the bosses are placed in such a way that they are even optional to beat to progress, which feels amazing and gives the player a lot of freedom to play Candy Rangers however they want. It is this sort of freedom that should have been allowed earlier. Just decrease the amount of medals needed early on, and maybe add a couple more stages between teaching the player new mechanics, and voila! The initial impression of Candy Rangers is largely set.

It feels really bad to be so critical about the early game, as the rest of the experience is wonderful. However, the first impression is really important in video games, which is something Candy Rangers highlights. It is a hidden gem that requires some digging to find, and if there is one message that this review should leave the reader with, it is this: the reward for said digging is totally worth it! Fans of shooters, especially those of the more creative and unique kind, should absolutely give Candy Rangers two fair chances, as the patience will be heavily rewarded.