Sequel Gotta Protectors: Cart of Darkness from Ancient and 8-4 is ready to rock your world on Nintendo Switch. Learn more about this gem in our Gotta Protectors: Cart of Darkness review!
Sequel Gotta Protectors: Cart of Darkness from Ancient and 8-4 is ready to rock your world on Nintendo Switch. If you didn’t get a chance to play the excellent prequel Gotta Protectors on the Nintendo 3DS – or the first game in the series, called Protect Me Knight, which was released way back in 2010 on the Xbox 360 – then you’re in for a treat! While the first game had four classes, Gotta Protectors bumped that up to six, giving you the Fighter, the Amazon, the Ninja, the Mage, the Old Guy, and the Archer. The premise for both games is simple: defend the Princess at all cost by using the wonderful attacks and abilities of your characters – as well as some strategically placed barricades – to save the day!
As your adventure with Gotta Protectors: Cart of Darkness begins, you witness the evil Glitch Heart present Princess Lola with an ultimatum: marry him, or else! Luckily, justice is right around the corner since it’s up to the Gotta Protectors to save the day. You must protect Princess Lola at all cost! Oh, wait… that intro was just a play that Princess Lola wrote, and the Gotta Protectors were just following a script. That means she’s safe, and there’s nothing to worry about… right?
Mmm, something is definitely different… the castle has suddenly turned into a tank and is in constant motion! At this rate, the castle will end up falling into the lake. The good news is that it won’t really be a problem since the monsters will probably destroy the castle before it even reaches the lake. Wait… what? It seems that evil forces are out to destroy every single video game in Magicadia. The Great Spirit Imago, the guardian of the land, is losing her power, but a guardian will rise to save the day!
Gotta Protectors: Cart of Darkness builds on top of what Gotta Protectors did and adds some fun twists along the way for what is a must-play on Nintendo Switch. You now have access to eight different characters since the Oracle and the Prince have joined the fight! You’ll have to first focus on protecting Princess Lola to bring her to the castle so that it can start moving towards the end of the tracks where it will battle the opposing castle as it smashes it to pieces! One hit won’t be enough, so be sure to protect the Princess and the castle as it bashes the enemy’s castle over and over again.
Select a party of three characters, and be sure to choose wisely so that you can balance things out! Each character will have different attacks and abilities to make the most of on the battlefield, as well as different parameters for their Power, Speed, and Life, while also having a special unique stat – low IQ for the Fighter, high Pudginess for the Amazon, low Armor for the Ninja (since he’s really not wearing much), high Meat for the Mage, low Wits for the Old Guy, high Cash for the Archer, high Fame for the Prince, and high Lust for the Oracle.
For example, the Fighter excels at Power and Life and has the Carry ability, a powerful Axe Toss, as well as a Potion to heal some of his wounds. The Amazon is the most balanced character of the bunch stats-wise, and she also has a useful Kick that can do a ton of damage. The Ninja has a fast-paced Shuriken and is also strong enough to use the Carry ability. The Archer will have a Rapid Bow attack that will unleash a world of hurt on opponents. Or you could make good use of the Oracle’s Life Zone to help your teammates recover some hit points!
Levels will start out easy enough to allow you to learn all of the basics. New elements will be introduced at a steady pace as to not overwhelm you, giving you a chance to adjust your strategy as needed. While new and more powerful enemies will pop up every now and then, you’ll also have to deal with holes in the track you’ll need to dive into with the L button to be able to prop the castle as it moves over the hole. There will also be colored keys to collect so that you can open the matching doors. Oh, and there will also be switches to activate so that you can change the direction of the tracks on which the castle is riding!
Defeat enemies, and you’ll gain a ton of gold coins. Gold coins are important since they can be used to boost your characters’ stats, increase the effectiveness of skills, boost the security provided by the structures that keep enemies from quickly reaching the Princess, or level up the Princess herself so that she has more hit points and can also help you along the way by giving you some much-needed cheering. The bigger your combos during each level, the more gold coins you’ll be able to collect! Gold coins can also be used to upgrade the castle, purchase new skillsets for each character, or give alms.
There are tons of collectibles to find in Gotta Protectors: Cart of Darkness. If you want to 100% the game, you’re going to have to find the over 900 Magicadia game cartridges that are hidden in the more than 100 levels! Each cartridge is an homage to a real game on the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). Cartridges are important since they can be equipped for each of your characters in order to give them a stat boost so that they can have a better chance of defeating the many enemies in the castle’s path.
Gotta Protectors: Cart of Darkness is out tomorrow on Nintendo Switch at a $14.99 price. There will be four DLC packs as well, with each one available at $2.99 or as a bundle for $10.99. If you want to go all-in, you can get the Darkness Ultimate Deluxe Bundle which includes the base game and all DLC for $24.99. Each DLC pack will add additional levels to play, as well as remixed soundtracks for the game based on the sound of the Sega Genesis, the PC-8801, the Game Boy, the WonderSwan, the Famicom Disk System sound chip, the VRC6 sound chip, and the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. On top of this, each DLC pack will add new abilities for two of the eight characters so that you can take on the new challenges in style with new abilities to save the day. You can also go to Limited Run Games and pre-order a physical version of the game on Nintendo Switch!
Disclaimer
This Gotta Protectors: Cart of Darkness review is based on a Nintendo Switch copy provided by 8-4.
