The planet is full of strange, almost alien creatures: humans infected by a virus that came to Earth from a meteorite. In Cure Hunters, your squad is Earth’s only hope to terminate this virus.
Cure Hunters is a charming, pixel-art action platformer full of shooting, monsters, bosses, and a whole lot of weapons. At first you start as the default member of the squad — a character with four lives, a gun with infinite ammo and a lot of bravery. You are dropped onto a part of Earth that’s completely full of infected people who have turned into zombies, as well as some big blue monsters. There’s also giant worms and flying creatures around — who knows what they used to be.
You’ll need to clear the entire area of the infected before you can move onto the next, inching closer and closer to the final boss virus — who is going to be a real challenge to take on. As you shoot with your gun you do have a bit of recoil pushing you back. Zombie-esque infected people don’t stay on the platform area, and many of the jumping and flying creatures will follow you around the level, so you will need to eliminate them all quickly.
If you find yourself in a pinch, you can roll through any danger, which keeps you safe until you are standing up. Monsters aren’t the only danger within the game — like most traditional platformers, there are also turrets and spikes to take some of your lives. Boxes can be found hidden around that allow you to gain more coins, ammo, and (rarely) lives that will keep you alive.
Once you make it to the end of a stage you will be met with a trader. Your hard earned coins can then be spent on a new gun, more ammo for the new gun, and health. I found myself spending a lot of money on health. You can earn a few extra coins by watching a video, which is sort of needed when it comes to Cure Hunters, as I never really had enough to replenish my health. Maybe if I was better at the game I’d watch less advertisements for more coins.
These different weapons all do have knock back, though you’ll quickly find that some of them have a big area that they do damage in. My first time with the cannon resulted in some lost lives as I learned not to stand too close. The new guns you purchase also have limited ammo, so you can go into your inventory and change them out, as to not waste good ammo on senseless things like boxes.
The only thing is, these weapons don’t stay with you after you die. Once you have lost all your lives you can either pay some coins or watch an video ad to continue. If you have used both of these options then you die fully, and return to the main menu. At the menu, you are given a bunch of coins based on the enemies you have killed, which you can spend to unlock new people to play as. These new humans have a different default gun, as well as general health and stats, which can help you make it further within the game.
One of my issues with the game was with the continuing of run of the game. When you do get put back in the game, you have a few seconds of being invincible before being thrown into the acting. This time is very brief, and if you die because you are in spikes or surrounded by monsters, you need to think fast or you will lose a few lives. It really sucks having to fight instantly after being thrown back — I almost wish the game put you onto a platform and blasted a bit of a wave out slightly, to either knock back or harm any enemies swarming you.
Cure Hunters is also a very challenging game. Maybe it’s because I haven’t played that many platformers on mobile devices, or maybe it was the size of my iphone, but the game itself was very tough. With each of the playthroughs being generated, I didn’t mind going back in too much, but there just are a lot of levels to make it through to get to the boss. Once you do finally get to the boss it does feel quite nice to destroy them! The look of Cure Hunters is also really lovely, adding a lot of character to the game.
You can pick up Cure Hunters for free on iOS and Android. The game does contain some in-app purchases for more coins or to remove adds, however purchasing any amount of coins will also remove ads. Forced video ads didn’t happen to much to me, it’s just occasionally between runs.
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