Cavity Busters [Xbox]
SpaceMyFriend’s Cavity Busters is strangely listed as a Platformer on Xbox, when really it should be described as a roguelite dungeon-crawler. You play as Gummy The Soft, who must fight tooth and nail through these fleshy, cavity-filled dungeons to take on the Pearly Knights, recovering teeth for Gob.
There’s a lot to be confused about with Cavity Busters. It has a decent premise - heavily inspired by the likes of Binding of Isaac, but it does have a lot of issues such as incorrect spelling as well as confusing or unclear explanations for things, which can make it quite frustrating to figure things out at first - running the risk of completely putting you off of the game. It is quite overwhelming, leaving you feeling like you’re biting off more than you can chew due to the sheer volume of things it tries to teach you in quick succession. Additionally, the controls are quite possibly the furthest thing from intuitive that I’ve ever experienced, and trying to check controls (either via the Options>Controls menu, or the limited info available in the ‘manual’) is infuriating, making it even harder to grin and bear it while you learn.
As well as Gummy, there are a variety of alternate ‘Players’ available for you to unlock, in the form of different teeth - each with their own criteria to unlock, and different effects to gameplay upon selecting them. There’s also a Collectibles screen that allows you to see all of the Synergies, a Bestiary, Stats and more. Your save files (seen before you load into the game) keep a record of Play Time, Players Unlocked and Upgrade Progress, with three file slots available - so you can easily see where you’re at with any of them, if you choose to have multiple on the go at any one time.
When you start, you are given the option of playing the tutorial (which it highly recommends, as do I!) in order to sink your teeth into all of the basics, from a standard shot to a boomerang shot, jumping and more. As much as it is frustratingly hard to learn, if you’re up for the challenge, it does end up being pretty fun to master. As well as using a lot of the standard dungeon-crawler elements, it adds aspects such as jumping - where you can jump high above the action to get a look around, and sometimes to catch a breather while you’re at it - and wall-running, though these sometimes feel a little unnecessary and clunky. There are various adjustments that can be made to the gameplay too - though not all of these are available from the start - which you can activate in the hub, including a Chill Mode that take the pressure off a little or a Hard Mode, if you want to up the ante even further.
As you explore through each level and deal with the bullet-hell that awaits you, you’ll pick up items that can help to aid you on your run, as well as fillings, and currency in the form of Mints which can be spent at the Shop. Making sure you check every room is key to make sure you don’t miss anything important, as visiting Item rooms will give you a big boost. You might also find Diseases along the way, which have both positives and negatives. Sometimes these negatives can be removed if you cure the disease, leaving just the positive effects behind - but this isn’t always gonna be possible - you’ll need to hope that you find a little guy on your travels who can give you access to the cures, but some Diseases might still be worth the risk, if the benefits are strong enough. If you choose not to take the risk of contracting the disease, then the dungeon will devour it instead, increasing the difficulty.
The grotesque visual style of Cavity Busters is fitting, with bulging flesh-walls and disgusting pus-filled globules all around. Enemies will assault you with an array of bright, neon projectiles, and you’ll have to dodge around them and do your best to survive. Enemy and NPC designs are similarly gross, and are well suited to the levels themselves, with plenty of demonic, toothy-creatures and creepy flesh-piles. The soundtrack, composed by Ben Ridge, is fantastic - with an inventive, fresh vibe that is extremely catchy, regardless of which area you’re in - and therefore which track is currently playing.
There are a lot of little references and jokes to pop culture - as well as mention of the ungodly amount of puns, recorded in the stats as ‘too many’. I picked up Guano, which was accompanied by a little bit of flavour text referencing Ace Ventura; an optional mode called The Busting of Isaac that increases drops; and a no-Dodge Rolls allowed bullet challenge that was given by a character that looks suspiciously like Enter the Gungeon’s bullet kin. These nods to other games in the genre, as well as movies, is a fun little inclusion that’s always welcome.
Available for £10.49 on Xbox, Cavity Busters is not for the faint of heart - it’s a highly challenging game with a significant amount of learning required. Even once you get the hang of a lot of things, there are still a lot of pieces of knowledge that you’ll feel like you’re just guessing along the way, as it’s not totally clear - but as long as you can get through the teething problems at the start you’ll be rewarded with something that ends up being truly worthwhile, and definitely put a smile on our faces.
In the end, we decided to give Cavity Busters the Collecting Asylum rating of 8/10.
Are you interested in Cavity Busters? What do you think of it?
Let us know in the comments below!
- V x
Thank you to JanduSoft for the Cavity Busters Xbox review code!
