Tunche - Switch Review

A South American inspired beat ‘em up, with hand drawn visuals and rogue lite elements is a tidy way to describe Tunche. Round up three friends, jump on the couch and dive into the beautiful world of Tunche, all with an emphasis on combo combat. Despite a challenging single-player campaign and an early game wall as you work through the rogue lite elements, there remains a really solid base game here for any fan of the genre.

The Good

Honestly, the best part of Tunche has to be the hand drawn art that captures the South American jungles in a beautiful way. Each character, playable or not, is drawn breathtakingly and while Hat Girl from A Hat in Time certainly does stick out like a sore thumb, she really looks adorable in this art style.

To go alongside the art is some audio that really helps to set the mood and bring with it an impact in combat which makes every hit feel like it carries weight. The tracks on the stages are pleasant to listen to while capturing that tribalistic sound associated with the visual design of the characters.

Tunche is best experienced with friends as you make your way through the deadly and dangerous jungle as they can help you with combos - it all allows for everyone to collect the individual currencies for each character simultaneously. This is the best way to experience the game as each character can cover the others’ weaknesses.

TL;DR

• Visually breathtaking
• Stellar Audio
• Fun Co-op

The Bad

While the beat ‘em up/roguelite combo is unique and relatively fun, characters feel weak during the game’s early stages; this is because moves are locked behind multiple different currencies, with each specifically allocated for a unique character. Once you get through the early game, it eases up a bit but there is an uphill climb to get there.

This problem is exacerbated during the early game due to the long load times, which can take up to a minute every time you start a run. This isn’t helped by the dual loading screens as the game loads the area you play in first then the level loads in.

TL;DR

• Repetitive gameplay early game
• Difficult solo play
• Long load times

Final Score: 7/10

While there are troubles in the early stages of the game that can turn away newer players, Tunche still maintains fun at its foremost, especially in co-op. Overall, this game is beautiful and has an amazing world built around it which is very interesting to explore. So jump into the world of Tunche with three friends, beat up some frogs and monkeys as you make your way through the jungle.

Thank you for checking out our Tunche switch review, thank you to HYPETRAIN Digital for providing the review code and thank you to our $5 and up Patreon Backers for their ongoing support:

• Andrew Caluzzi (Inca Studios / Camped Out)
• Bel Cubitt

For more reading, check out our review of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic.