Super DynoStory

Last week I reviewed a 2022 game called Chop Goblins that allowed me to take out my aggression on a weird cameo by Dracula. That turned out to be so much fun, that I’ve decided to look at another game with a slightly out-of-place celebrity boss. The game in question is Super DynoStory, a weird side-scrolling adventure in the spirit of Super Metroid that has you going head-to-head with a surprisingly hostile Santa Claus. It’s just one of the many fun little quirks that helps to make this throwback game stand out in an extremely crowded genre. But is knocking out Santa enough of a reason to recommend the debut release from Studio DynoStorm? Find out now when I review Super DynoStory.

The first thing you need to know about this game is that it has absolutely nothing to do with dinosaurs. This is not the over-the-top adventures of a super-smart T-Rex, but rather the irreverent story of Dyno, a young astronaut who is hauling gold across the galaxy for a mysterious client. Of course, his job isn’t going to be that easy, as he learns when his ship crash lands on a snowy planet controlled by a gold-stealing leader named Pallid. It’s now up to Dyno to thoroughly explore this strange new world, collect power-ups and defeat this Pallid guy once and for all.

As a side-scrolling game, Super DynoStory checks off most of the MetroidVania cliches. It’s the kind of adventure where Dyno will find a useful item that will open up new parts of the planet, where he’ll find yet another new item that will, you guessed it, open up even more new areas to explore. It’s the formula that has kept indie developers in business for at least twenty years, and Studio DynoStorm plays it pretty safe with the tropes.

In fact, the game plays it so safe that we start out not even being able to jump. We have to stomp on a megaslug just to earn the ability to leap off the ground. We’ll eventually find power-ups that will make it easier to see in dark places, a gun to help you survive the brutal wildlife and even the ability to run straight through rocks and other obstacles. Although it goes in some interesting directions, Super DynoStory plays it straight when it comes to the power-ups you’re searching for. I kept waiting for something new and inventive, but that’s just not what this game is going for.

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In a lot of ways, Super DynoStory really does look and feel like a lot of other games in the genre. Earning the ability to jump or shoot a gun is hardly earth-shaking stuff, and the level designs (and backgrounds) feel like they could have come from a dozen other throwback games. This is not a game that shakes up the formula or tries to innovate the genre. It’s perfectly happy painting inside the lines and following the leader, which can be both a good and a bad thing.

What Super DynoStory has going for it is a sense of humor. I already mentioned that you fight a hostile Santa Claus, but very little of this game takes itself seriously. To show you what I mean, one of the very first characters you meet on the road to get back your gold is a guy who is desperate to turn you into a furry. There are a lot of characters inhabiting this world that are not only self-aware that they are in a video game, but are quick to poke fun at the many cliches and tropes found in this type of adventure. This is a game that is so persistent that it eventually beats you down until you can’t help but laugh at its absurdity. Plus, it makes some fun observations about both MetroidVania games and throwback titles in general. If you stick with the adventure and see it through, a big reason for that will likely be the non-stop jokes and humor.

That said, I’m not a big fan of the voice acting. In fact, I’ll go one step further and say that most of it is kind of bad. Then again, much like everything else, you end up getting used to it after a while. In that sense it’s a bit endearing, but there’s never a point where it becomes so bad that it’s good. For me, I found the writing better than the line delivery, which made me wish the game skipped the voice acting all together.

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Speaking of things I don’t like, I can’t stand the way the map is set up in this game. Like so many other titles inspired by Super Metroid, a lot of your job is to remember how the different parts of the planet are connected together. The problem is that we can’t look at the full map, so it’s extremely easy to mixed up and turned around while trying to find where to go next. Super DynoStory is not always good at subtly pointing you in the right direction, and there were plenty of times when I was lost and doing whatever I could to make headway. Being able to see the full map (or even flip between the different sections) would have eased some of this frustration and made the mysterious planet a lot easier to navigate.

And for as funny as a lot of the boss dialog is, the actual one-on-one fights are a real letdown. There are a couple good ones early on, but once you’ve earned some of the key abilities, most will go down without much of a fight. There were a few fights that were so short that it felt like I had cheated the game. And even when we’re forced to fight all of the bosses at once (which is one of the many inspired gags in the game), I was shocked by how easy it was. What should have been an epic battle was over just as quickly as it began. That’s disappointing.

And yet, despite these problems, I couldn’t help but have a good time playing Super DynoStory. The graphics are nothing to write home about, but exploring this strange planet and solving its many puzzles is still a whole lot of fun. This is a formula that has worked for countless other games, so you shouldn’t be surprised to see it work here. Toss in some clever writing and a few really funny characters, and you have an aggressively vanilla adventure that is improved by a snarky sense of humor.