Super Blood Hockey is a retro-style hockey game that gives off the feeling that you are playing the classic Ice Hockey game from the NES, just with a bit more blood and violence.
Players have the option to choose from a handful of countries including the United States and North Korea — not intentional, I’m sure — in three modes: Exhibition, Tournament, and Challenge.
They’re all straight forward, and what you would expect. Exhibition and Tournament are standard for sports games like this, and the Challenge mode allows players to unlock some custom setting sliders for use elsewhere.
There’s no season mode of any sort. The closest you’ll get to that is by tracking games and player stats manually, but that’ll be pretty hard with no player names or numbers.
Before loading into a game, you select what type of players you want on the ice with the options being Enforcers, Playmakers, and Snipers. After picking any combination of four, it’s time to drop the puck.
The player models look good for sprite art, but they look like they are simply walking as opposed to skating on ice. Playing the game is simple enough as the controls are easy to understand with a button for passing, shooting and checking.
There aren’t any penalties in Super Blood Hockey, making it a free-for-all on the ice when it comes to hitting. From the refs to your own teammates, anyone can be clobbered on the ice. The only players that will put you in your place no matter what are the goaltenders.
Go crazy with the hitting, and you’ll taking part in a full line brawl sooner than you think. With blood shooting out onto the ice, you’ll be throwing punches at whoever happens to be near you until only one team has players standing. As a reward for your dominance, the team that lost the fight must play with a man down. But rather than leave the ice, he just suffers a seizure for a little bit while the game continues.
Shooting can be a bit difficult though because of the need to aim every shot without really having much of a window to do so.
Now, that’s not a bad thing that you can’t simply get shots off immediately whenever you want. However, when it takes as long as it does to power up a shot while aiming it, fun can quickly be sucked out of the game.
Speaking of fun, the game is much more enjoyable when playing with friends. It allows up to four players with local co-op, but offers no sort of online multiplayer which be a turn off for some.
Super Blood Hockey does offer one of the best original soundtracks for an indie game not called Undertale. Classic 8-bit style tracks play behind every part of the game, each one being catchier than the previous song. The music does a nice job of the games feeling more intense than they actually are.
It would just be nice if there was more to do other than listening to some kick ass music.
VERDICT
Super Blood Hockey is a game that has its charm. From the great music to the generally fun gameplay, it’s definitely worth giving it a look at such a low price. But unless you’re playing with some friends, there’s not much worth coming back to after completing the challenges and playing in a tournament or two.
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