Review | Donuts’n’Justice

LifeisXbox’s Donuts’n’Justice review | It took about five years but fast-paced 1980s 2D shoot-’em-up Donuts’n’Justice has finally come to consoles! As you can probably tell already by the title, this game is all about police and donuts, because that’s one popular combo, isn’t it. More specifically you’ll be playing as one of two Super Cops who want to defend their city against gangs, violence, and corruption. This sure all sounds like some pretty basic ideas and gameplay, but does Donuts’n’Justice, developed by FobTi Interactive, manage to grab our attention anyway? Find out below!

We played Donuts’n’Justice for 2 hours on Xbox Serires X. This game is also available on Steam, Nintendo Switch, and PlayStation.

What we liked!

• Fun gameplay and easy controls| Donuts’n’Justice is, as advertised, a fast-paced side-scrolling shooter. The gameplay is so much fun and the enemies swarming around you really make you feel like you’re in the middle of the action all the time. You’ll notice that you can start playing this game right away since the controls are ridiculously easy to learn. You move left or right, and you shoot left or right. However, moving left does not mean you’ll be shooting left. Different buttons ensure you shoot in one of two directions. You can also throw grenades if you see a bunch of bad guys heading your way. There are five stages, five boss levels, and one extra level. The boss fights are very easy, honestly, so you might want to ramp up that difficulty level!
• Pick up everything | When you’re in the midst of battle, don’t forget to pick up everything the enemies drop. There are pink donuts that grant you health or green ones that slow down time for a few seconds. You’ll also come across badges on the streets; collect enough of these and you unlock new weapons. You cannot choose what weapon you want to use though, these are randomly dropped in boxes on the streets. If you want to buy some hats with nice buffs in the shop, you better pick up money too! The shop is fun for completionists as well by the way, as you can buy hats that will, for example, unlock Halloween or black & white modes.
• Pixelated graphics & upbeat track | You’re either a fan of this old-school pixelated graphic style, or you absolutely hate it. Luckily, I’m all for it and enjoy the nostalgic feeling it brings with it. In Donuts’n’Justice the art style is very vivid and all enemies have their own unique looks. The five stages are also very different as you have Chinatown, but also an Alien Encounter. I’m just in love with everything in Donuts’n’Justice graphics-wise! The soundtrack and sound effects are pretty neat as well and offer an upbeat kind of feeling that complements the graphics and overall gameplay.
• Enemies | Enemies come into play both on the left and right sides of your screen so there is never a moment of rest. I quite enjoyed this as it kept me sharp, and most importantly, it ensured that I continuously moved my character around. Now, for the enemies themselves, there are a few different ones. Some will shoot at you, some come running at you. And some are not enemies at all since they’re just citizens screaming not to shoot them. I did like that the developer added some innocents in the game as well because it kept me from just randomly shooting everything that moved.
• Difficulty | Donuts’n’Justice offers three difficulty settings, and I have to note here that the difficulty quickly ramps up between the first, second, and third one. The easiest one is called Thumbsucker so I tried to avoid playing in this mode just for the sake of my own pride. I don’t wanna be no thumbsucker like some of our other writers (not dropping names here… Alexis.. oops..). Anyway, the normal difficulty setting was my best friend and I finished all levels (except the second one, what a toughy) here. The Nuck Chorris setting proved to be the most challenging difficulty. Yes, Nuck Chorris, you read that right.
• Local co-op | I read that the game offered a local co-op option, but could not find this in the menu. Luckily, my boyfriend noticed a text on the top of the screen saying that when you’re playing, a second player can just press the fire button and that makes them join the game. You can play all five stages and five boss levels together, but the car chase is something you have to do on your own.

Somewhere between

• I ended up liking everything that Donuts’n’Justice has to offer, but there is one crucial dislike…

What we disliked

• It’s over before you know it | Donuts’n’Justice is insanely short as you can easily beat this game in an hour. I once played through the entire game with my boyfriend in a little under 30 minutes even! There are only 5 stages, some boss fights, and an extra in-between car chase, but just when you feel like you’re getting really into this game, the credits roll and that’s just too bad. I feel like Donuts’n’Justice has a lot of potential still, and more levels would definitely make this game more interesting. But 5 Euros for an hour of playtime and no real replay value is just not going to cut it for every player.

How long to beat the story | 1 hour
How long to achieve 1000G | 1 hour
Similar with | Simple 2D platformers

CONCLUSION

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