Avenger Bird is like toast. It’s a plain, simple base that tastes dry on its own and really needs flavour added to make it worthwhile. At its core Avenger Bird is a 2D platformer. You play as a bird who is out for vengeance after their eggs are stolen in the opening cutscene (Editor’s Note: with a story and title so simular to “Anger Birds” this seems like a cheap Asylum style cash in). The only way to save them is to, of course, avoid every enemy you come across like the plague and collect all the rings. Or maybe they’re donuts. That’d be more fun. Lets call them donuts. Grab the donuts, open the exit, Bob’s your uncle.

The most impressive feature I found was some solid lighting effects applied to the background. That should tell you something.

On the plus side, the movement options for Mildly Annoyed Bird are something new at least. Instead of having traditional jump controls, you can fly and glide. Fly lifts you up whereas glide slows your descent, allowing for lots of horizontal movement and quick lifts whenever you feel like it. It’s a shame though that they’re both metered and require landing to refill. Unless you count the ridiculously finicky air currents that turn up in the second area. Even now I’m not sure how to consistently fly above them.

But sadly, Disgruntled Bird doesn’t really do anything interesting with this flying concept. Every problem you come across is solved in one of two ways. Fly over it, or fly under it. And the game hardly adds much else to spice things up. World 2 has air currents, world 3 has cannons and world 4 introduces the exhilarating concept of doors and keys to the mix! I felt practically spoiled by that addition.

I admit, I’m giving Upset Bird a hard time, but there are simply better platformers out there and it doesn’t do anything to really stand out. It’s good if you just want to mindlessly complete a platformer (a pastime I absolutely do enjoy) but bar that, there’s just not much here to bite into. The artwork wasn’t even that interesting, and it bugged me how Unhappy Bird seemed to be only living thing with an outline in the entire game. I couldn’t even identify what some of the enemies were supposed to be.

Seriously, what is that thing supposed to be?

Plus, the only way to finish a level is to collect everything which really just makes it feel like a chore. I love a good checklist, if it’s up to me if I want to get everything. Getting all 2000 donuts is required to fight the final boss, and not only that, getting all 32 hidden gems is required to get the good ending in said boss. 100% completion is mandatory to see the ending. Saying that, it’s not particularly difficult. I finished the game in a few hours, and now there’s no reason to ever touch it again.

So would I recommend Avenger Bird? Eh… not really. It’s not bad; just boring. If you adore platformers and want to venture through your typical forest, desert, ice, and castle worlds as a bird, this’ll get the job done for you. But don’t expect anything earth-shattering. Like I said at the start, this game is like toast. Scratch that actually, it might as well be sliced bread.

Avenger Bird was developed by: TiliaSoft

Point of Sale: Steam, Switch

$4 on Steam, £2.30 on Switch: Avenger Bird is probably not the word

 

A Switch review copy was provided by the developer

Stevie has awarded Avenger Bird a single slice of bread.