G.I. Joe: Wrath of Cobra PS5 Review – Saturday Morning Smash Up

G.I. Joe: Wrath of Cobra PS5 Review

Beat ’em ups are back! Specifically, 2D action games based on beloved children’s shows are having a moment right now. G.I. Joe: Wrath of Cobra is the latest contender, and it seems like a winner at first. The visuals are bright, the music is banging, and the special moves are rad. But I noticed some issues almost immediately. For one thing, the fights are kind of dull.

I’m not sure what the core issue is. You don’t have a lot of moves to work with. Enemy variety doesn’t ramp up for several stages. And the boss battles take a while to get through. None of these problems are especially awful in isolation. They just add up over time. You do eventually see a wide range of opponents with different attacks, which is refreshing. And your special recharges pretty quickly. But your regular move set is fairly limited.

Heavy moves and jump strikes are pretty easy to pull off, but you don’t need them for the most part. At least, not on the standard difficulty mode. I just swapped between normal attacks and the occasional special move to get through most battles. If nothing else, every character plays differently. Snake Eyes and Duke have unique move sets, and their stats reflect this as well. So you can have a favorite, and that choice actually means something. Although there are only four fighters to choose from, you can unlock a couple more. It’s just a nasty slog to do so.

A Long Road Ahead

Actually, unlocking anything in Wrath of Cobra feels like a chore. You acquire little floppy disks as currency from defeated enemies. Feels like you’ve got a fat stack of them after every stage, right? Wrong! You need to run through pretty much the entire campaign to unlock even the cheapest item in the shop. If you want one of the two extra characters, it’s more like 1.5 campaigns. After several defeats, I got through every stage. The thought of doing so several more times to get the extra levels and the other two fighters? Just utterly draining. I simply can’t imagine doing so. Maybe it’s more fun in multiplayer?

I might not love all the action, but the aesthetics are on point. Every stage is drenched in bright, bold, action figure colors. The character designs are clean and crisp. All the enemies and vehicles feel like toys your mom might get you for Christmas this year (1986). Even the effects have that timeless beat ’em up quality I adore. The soundtrack is also excellent. Just a hot mess of shredding guitars and pounding drums. I wasn’t as thrilled with the boss designs though.

Maybe I’m just not familiar enough with the source material. We’re all of Cobra’s villains so interchangeable? Cobra and Destro are great, but almost everyone else seem like henchmen who got promoted a couple of times. Like, some corporal in this private army sets off a bomb without losing any fingers. Suddenly he’s a level boss? Again, maybe I just need a more intimate connection to the old cartoons and/or action figures for some of these people to come off as sufficiently cool and exciting.

Who Even Are These People

All this sounds like I had exactly zero fun playing Wrath of Cobra. Which is untrue. Snake Eyes and Scarlett are a pretty good time, even if their special moves are sort of weak. Using sword slashes and axe kicks to tear through henchmen is a blast, at least in short doses. I wish your life count reset between stages. Too often I ended up mostly dead on a brand new stage. Though learning the ins and outs of said stages was a pretty good time, sometimes. I just ran into obstacles to my enjoyment.
Whether it was the boss design, the life count, or a handful of glitches, I kept hitting roadblocks during my playthrough. As much as I might enjoy certain characters or gameplay elements, I still struggled with this one. I had fun slogging my way to the last stage, sure. But the thought of playing enough to unlock everything fills me with terrible dread. G.I. Joe: Wrath of Cobra might be for franchise fans more than anyone interested in another beat ’em up.

***A PS5 code was provided by the publisher***