The first thing Pit People hits you in the face with is the madcap music and signature, absurdist, oftentimes wonderfully unhinged art style of Dan Paladin, known from such games as Alien Hominid and Castle Crashers. From murderous pixies to boot-scooting unicorns that function as candy-colored artillery pieces, I was never given any impression that this world takes itself seriously.
You’re introduced to the world by a short but wild and well-paced main quest that features a giant, angry space bear who kidnapped your son serving as a GLaDOS-style hostile narrator. It took me less than six hours to complete, but in that time it includes some clever takes on the battle mechanics, including a couple stealth missions that didn’t involve combat at all.
One quest might have you holding off a group of vaguely British robots at the behest of a guy with an American flag covering his entire face who hasn’t heard that the Revolution is over. Another involves cutting a mouth parasite out of a sea monster so you can recruit it to your party – by having another squadmate eat it, naturally. The unpredictable nature of the setting and writing could lose some of its charm in too large doses, but it certainly ensures that Pit People never starts to feel dull. One of my biggest disappointments was that the optional content I played didn’t include as much of the clever mission design that I saw in the main quests.
The humor that accompanies it doesn’t always land – there’s a mechanic where you can leave behind a trail of poop to retrace your steps in the overworld, which made me cringe rather than laugh – but when it strays outside the bounds of being crazy for the sake of craziness and actually injects some genuine wit into the equation, it had me chuckling my way through what otherwise may have been stressful battles.
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And the plot is more than just a vehicle for absurdism. It unexpectedly became somewhat thought-provoking by the end, tying back into Behemoth’s previous game, Battleblock Theater, in a humorous and clever way.
The turn-based combat system is populated by all the usual suspects: beefy melee tanks, agile rogues, long-ranged archers, and damage-dishing mages. There’s a bit of an interesting catch, though, in that you don’t have absolute control over how your fighters behave. Each turn, you give a movement order that has to be followed to the letter – but targets for attacks and healing spells are decided semi-randomly by the characters based on where they land and what’s around them.
Thus, an unusual element of chaos comes into play. It seemed like oversimplifying my decision-making at first, but I eventually warmed up to it and I found I was basing my formations on giving my squad the least amount of rope with which to hang themselves. That became an enjoyable tactical layer all its own, though at times I felt like the lack of reaction attacks or any other way to control or limit my enemies’ movement made things a bit too hectic and unpredictable.
That said, there’s a rock-paper-scissors-esque gear system that rewards you for coordinating your team composition. Bringing characters who are good at blocking, characters who are good at dodging, and characters who can break through each of these defense styles, in turn, can make a big difference, since some enemy groups will be very hard to hit without accurate characters or very hard to damage without anti-armor characters and no character can be good at everything. For all its apparent simplicity, Pit People can actually be quite satisfyingly complex below the surface.
Pit People’s life is extended by an ever-rotating selection of side quests, and there’s the eponymous Pit, which is an arena in which you can play solo or co-op battles against waves of AI enemies or two-versus-two PvP. Competitive play can be a lot of fun in its absurdity, considering neither side is ever entirely sure what their fighters are going to do. And for the truly dedicated, there’s also a Pokemon element in that you can spend dozens of hours capturing every foe you find in the overworld and adding them to your roster by making sure they’re the last enemy standing and then throwing a net over them.
The Verdict
The catchy song that plays over Pit People’s ending credits (and has been stuck in my head for the last several days) proclaims: “And it all makes sense now!” That might be overstating things, since its tactical battles never played out the way I expected due to each character having a mind of their own when it comes to what to actually attack or heal. But pit People’s weird world has a special, quirky way of being amusing no matter what you’re doing. I enjoyed it mostly in small doses, as the bright colors, twisted sense of humor, and goofy, energetic soundtrack can get to be a little much sometimes.
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