Warships on the Halloween Night (PC) review "You sunk my jack-o'-lantern!"

I see a lot of games refer to themselves as “arcade throwbacks” while presenting the blandest premises. As a former coin-op junkie, I remember the days when inserting a quarter took you on surreal trips, where knights battled on backs of ostriches, living soap bubbles navigated dirty sinks, and clowns crushed horned monsters with bricks. You don't always find that kind of charming nonsense these days, and it's a shame.

During one deep dive of Steam's marketplace, I discovered Warships on the Halloween Night, which claimed to be an arcade-style shooter. Its moniker sounded just “punny” enough (perhaps inadvertently, but whatever) to possibly scratch the itch for a weird romp. So I fired it up and it immediately took me to a single-screen rundown of its plot. “Oh man, I miss this,” I thought. As it turns out, gigantic pumpkins have begun appearing on Halloween night. No one knows where they came from, although there are some theories and conspiracy-generated speculation. In time, the massive jack-o-lanterns amass a fleet of ships, some of which feature humongous carved pumpkins armed with cannons. One Halloween, the ghoulish boats decide to attack a US naval vessel, resulting in all-out war.

Yes, this game is about the United States declaring war on giant pumpkin ships. God bless it.

As you enter the game proper, its arcade sensibilities continue. Colorful sprites and the kind of charming music you might associate with mall arcades of the '80s crop up, while standard ships appear on the horizon and open fire. Though the presentation looks dated, they show off impressive detail for 2D retro visuals. Each boat boasts tiny features, complete with miniature turrets and various little steel structures.

Sadly, things kind of dive from here...



Most shmups play the same. You have one button that fires your main weapon, one that launches special projectile, and sometimes one to perform another function, such as shields. However, Warships doesn't adhere to those standards. Granted, you do have a fire button, but it's located on the controller's shoulder. Each of your main buttons, however, switches the type of arsenal you utilize. You see, you have four different types of weapons here, and each come with a limited supply. Your main weapon rapid fires parallel bullets that each deal minimal damage, while your secondary blaster expels a blue projectile that's requires precision, but dishes out more punishment. Then you have your tertiary gun, which cuts loose two diagonal shots from your front end, allowing you to nail foes on either side when you're surrounded.

Lastly, you have missiles, which I'll get into later because they're a whole other boatload of annoyance...

Meanwhile, your enemies appear on the horizon and unleash ordinance with reckless abandon. You can't actually blow them up without sustaining harm yourself, which you eventually learn is just part of the game. It's nearly impossible—if not straight up impossible—to survive a stage without taking at least a little damage. Or, hell, a lot of damage... Thankfully, you come across power-ups that restore part of your health now and then, so it's not like every onslaught permanently leaves you with bullet holes.

You have to learn how to best deal with each scenario as it comes to you, and that means figuring out how to mitigate harm while taking out the opposition and conserving ammo. Different situations might call for you to switch weapons on the fly, which can be tricky when you're still memorizing which buttons switch your cannon to particular munitions. For instance, you might run afoul of standard vessels, only to be surrounded by turrets. In such a case, you power through the weaklings with your main shooter, then switch to the diagonal launcher. More powerful ships emerge after that, and you realize your blue bullets would be best for this gauntlet. And if you're wrong and you fail and die, no biggie. You restart the stage from the top, but you never glimpse a 'game over' screen thanks to infinite lives.



However, you can expect to die frequently. Not only does the barrage of explosives eventually wear you down when you haven't sufficiently practiced a stage, but merely touching a landmass automatically kills you. And this happens a lot because some island and structures sit in the most inconvenient spots on the map. Combine that with the game's slightly loose controller response, and you can see why perishing remains inevitable throughout this mission.

This game sounds cheap, but you eventually learn to cope with its stiff challenge factor. Part of that requires you to stop worrying about avoiding literally every cannonball that comes your way, but part of it also hinges on how well you can learn patterns and plan for oncoming hazards. With perseverance, you find that this game is actually quite doable, even if (like me) you're not very good at shoot 'em ups.

And then the last few stages pop up...

Ammo drops pop up in specific locations throughout the campaign. However, you don't receive additional missiles until you near the end of the affair, which leaves you with a mere ten to work with. There's a reason for that: missiles can one-shot anything except the final boss. Obviously, there's a catch, as missiles fly slowly and usually at awkward angles. They often auto-aim for targets and sail in their direction, seeming to obey no one but their own stubborn hearts. Sadly, that's where things get messy. Some stages crowd you with super tough adversaries that just about force you to use missiles. Your success during these confrontations also hinges on whether your rockets act as they should or fall prey to their own glitches. Sometimes, missiles simply stop shooting, and you have to reactivate them. That's not much of a problem, thankfully, and certainly not the worst of your woes. Now and then, missiles decide they don't want to fly toward enemy ships and instead launch behind you. We're not talking just one pair, either, but duo after duo. When this occurs, you're better off running aground and starting over because you won't be able to topple the hordes in front of you before they shave off too much of your life.



And yet, it's all somehow still doable. Despite all of these flaws, Warships's arcade charm works a treat. Granted, the game is far from perfect, but I still appreciate it as a love letter to stranger times, when games exuded concepts that defied logic and reason. It's just a shame this title didn't cook up more inventive shmup content, and instead offered clumsy combat and buggy weapons.

Staff review by Joseph Shaffer (October 01, 2023) Rumor has it that Joe is not actually a man, but a machine that likes video games, horror movies, and long walks on the beach. His/Its first contribution to HonestGamers was a review of Breath of Fire III.