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A Star Spore has crashed onto Earth, bringing with it creatures beyond our nightmares and slowly decimating the Earth and killing all life, including our protagonist, Sergeant Varlette. But, it seems Lady Luck had other plans as one of the aliens has decided to make your body it’s home and now, imbued with their powers (as well as the future knowledge that your head was up an alien’s butt), it’s up to you to use these gifts and fight back against the spore menace and save the world. I played many games that had crazy premises for alien invasion, but I don’t think I played any with a concept as wild and out there as ChainStaff, from developer Mommy’s Best Games (the same guys behind the seriously under-rated Serious Sam Double D XXL), and I mean that in a good way: This game is insane, wild, disgusting, beautiful, and I just couldn’t stop playing.
“Welcome To Paradise”
The moment I booted up the game, I knew I was in for a visual treat as my eyes were presented some of the most gorgeous visuals for a game since Clash: Artifacts Of Chaos, with backgrounds heavily inspired by Roger Dean. For those who aren’t familiar, Roger Dean is an artist who specializes in exotic and fantasy landscapes and did the artwork for musicians such as Yes and Asia, as well as the box art for games like Terrorpods, Shadow Of The Beast, and the ‘92 game Agony. I’ve always been a fan of his artwork ever since learning about him and, alongside the likes of Boris Vallejo and Zdzisław Beksiński, he’s up there as one of my favorite artists. Though, unlike Boris’ and his muscle bound heroes and Zdzisław Beksiński and his nightmare fueled landscapes, Roger’s paintings have this ‘alien yet familiar’ feel to them. Like, you know this place shouldn’t exist in reality yet there’s just enough familiarity within it that it could exist. ChainStaff, in turn, takes this idea and pulls it off beautifully. Each of the ten levels you visit have unique looks to them that makes each one a visual treat to play through. I found myself, at times, just stopping and just admiring the scenery - when I wasn’t getting attacked - in all its splendor. This goes double for the enemy selection, with each one having these surreal designs that get straight up gnarly at times, with a few actually making me slightly queasy. Not to the point of an upset stomach but just enough to go “Ok, that is truly messed up.” If I had to compare them to anything, I say it reminded me a lot of John Carpenter’s The Thing remake and how it did creature designs. While not quite as over the top as that movie, there are still some creatures that are crazy looking and, like I said earlier, some of them get really gnarly looking. To say the game earns its ‘Mature’ rating would be an understatement here.
On that note, I do have to say there is one boss in the game, who I won't spoil, whose design was pretty lackluster in comparison to the rest of the game’s roster. It wasn’t bad by any means and the whole level based around the boss was cool. It’s just the design that was kind of disappointing. Though, I can’t say the same for the music cause wow! This has to be one of the best soundtracks I’ve heard all year. I love how it can go from a simple prog-rock sounding instrumental you hear out of an Yes album to straight-up heavy metal when the action really heats up! Now, granted, I did hear a few tracks repeated throughout the game, but I didn’t mind it in this case as they were some of the best tracks in the game. Seeing as they are composed by the guy behind Broforce’s music which, despite not being the best game I played, makes sense. That game’s soundtrack was amazing, so I’m happy to hear their work once again! Especially the final stage which completely caught me by surprise when I heard it. It almost sounded like a lost Dio song, like something that would’ve fit on his Angry Machines album. I actually found myself headbanging throughout the stage as it played and tapping my foot to the rhythm, it was that good!
On the opposite end of the spectrum and one of my few minor nitpicks, the human designs are a bit ‘eh’ looking, though the pilot with the bathrobe was surprisingly the best looking of the bunch. It wasn’t enough to really hurt the game in any way but was enough to just stand out in a sort of bland way. They really just look generic and not that interesting. In fact, none of them are really that interesting character wise, though I will give the game credit that the Commander is actually trying to help you get the alien off your head. The only exception to this is the main character you play as, Sergeant Varlette. I do like how, despite his head being up an alien’s bum, Varlette is still human and you do have choices that either keeps his humanity or give into the alien, which I’ll touch on when we discuss gameplay, though there are hints that there is a bit of the alien taking over at points. Something else I need to nitpick would be the animations. They aren’t bad by any means nor are they horrendous. They’re just kind of simple, if not too simple. This isn’t a bad thing, hear me out, and the simple animations do help the creatures look more alien. Just that when it comes to humans, it does kind of stand out a bit more. I’m not asking for Valve levels of animation here, just maybe a few extra frames here or there. It doesn’t hurt the overall game for me, let me be clear there, as the game is still excellent. I just feel the animation style on the humans in both the cutscenes and gameplay just feels a bit iffy.
“Rip And Tear!”
But, as the old adage goes, ‘Graphics don’t make a game’, so how’s the gameplay itself? Well, when I first began playing, I thought this was going to be something along the lines of a Metroidvania. What I mean is that you have a huge, sprawling world with various locations to visit and expand on once you get certain items. But that wasn’t the case here in ChainStaff. Instead, the game is split into ten levels that you unlock once you find a spore egg in any level, with some backtracking here and there to rescue soldiers and find other important items. If anything, I’d say it’s more of a Lite-vania rather than a full Metroidvania. There are still elements of a Metroidvania in here but it’s not fully a Metroidvania. You still get new tools to help you along your mission as well as upgrades for your gear and that’s where the soldiers you come across come into play. Whenever you come across a soldier yelling “HELP!”, you are given three options: Devour their heart, suck their brains out, or save them, with each option leading to one of six endings and different upgrades you can get. In my case, since I never cared much for playing as an evil person (GTA, Postal 2, and Saint’s Row aside), I made sure to rescue each of the four soldiers on the ten levels whenever I came across them. I was surprised by how easy it was to locate them, thanks to the giant HELP that pops up, along with the arrows that sorta guide you to their location.
With each soldier you rescue, you earn Tech Points which can be used at various droids or in-between missions to upgrade your gear, consisting of a useful shield that acts as your health bar and missiles that can easily help turn battles in your favor. But it’s not just these upgrades you have access to in your quest, oh no. You also get the titular ChainStaff: an alien-spear that acts as both an offensive, defensive, and puzzle solving tool. Need to take out enemies faster? Hold the button and launch the staff like a spear! Need to get up to higher places or prevent the ceiling from turning you into a meat pancake or enemies from hitting you? Plant it on the ground! It even doubles as a Bionic Commando-like swing which, I’ll admit, I had the most fun using once I got a hang of it, which didn’t take too long. There were times where I did grapple onto something I didn’t want to or the grappling didn’t work too well, but those only seem to happen when I got just a bit too rushed in my gameplay.
While I said this isn’t a Metroidvania, the levels are still kinda designed like one, hence me calling it a Litevania. Outside of soldiers to rescue, you can find pieces for your ChainStaff that, once you collect four, you can choose one of three upgrades, including doing more damage when used as an offensive weapon. You’ll also come across new parasites that’ll attach to you and give you new abilities, like a fish tail that enables you to swim up waterfalls and a jellyfish-thing that helps you hover through clouds (don’t question it). I think my favorite ones were the flamethrower attachment to your rifle and the wings that enable a very helpful double jump. These parasites you collect can also help you locate the missing soldiers and locate bosses in the levels you have already completed as they help open up new areas to explore, though I did find a few areas I was able to reach just by spamming the ChainStaff grapple feature. My main issue is the in-game map or, rather, the lack of any map. Yes, if you pause the game there is a map of sorts that shows you what the level looks like and you can teleport to unlocked areas via the drones you activate, but as for showing exactly where you are? That it doesn’t do and I found myself, sometimes, getting lost and having to rely on visual cues more often than not. Now, I will give the game credit and that the map does tell you what areas you still need to visit via blurring them and I do also like how, before you select a stage, it tells you what all is there for you to collect. I just would’ve liked a bit of a better map system that just tracks your location better.
“Welcome to my nightmare!”
ChainStaff is, without a doubt, one of the coolest games I’ve played this year. The minor issues I had never detracted from the sheer fun I had while I fought back against the alien menace. With its amazing artstyle, headbangingly awesome music, and fun gameplay, I see myself returning to the world of ChainStaff again and again, especially with its multiple endings depending on your choice to save or devour the soldiers and its New Game+ mode. While the lack of a decent map system and some gameplay elements were on the iffy side, they weren’t enough to deter my enjoyment and I can not recommend this game enough. I mean, how many games can you say you blasted aliens while traversing Roger Dean inspired worlds with your head up an alien’s rear?
