The devs for Pizza Tower and Anton Blast are good friends. Peppino is even a playable character in Anton Ball. I like to think of these games as taking place in the same world.
Burlo does look like a relative of Peppino. XD Even has the same "I'm SO over it" expression every time you talk to him. It would be cool if Peppino or Noise were playable in Anton Blast, since the devs are discussing potential DLC campaigns if the game is popular enough.
I will NEVER get over Annie's perpetual slasher smile! I LOVE the design they gave to her! Just goes to show the GLOVES ARE OFF! It also helps all her vocal lines sound like she's perpetually tipsy but is putting up with it all, like when she says "oh boy..." as she's about to roll.
kinda surprised you mentioned inspirations I never would have thought of like Yoshi Island and Donkey Kong Country but didn't mention Crash Bandicoot as the devs mentioned many times it's a big inspiration and you can really see it in the game, especially some songs
Funny, there's another solid 2D indie platformer from recently, which does a different thing every level, called Decline's Drops, where Yoshi's Island was named as an explicit inspiration by the dev. Can recommend looking into it.
Yoshi’s island is my favorite childhood game and I immediately recognized it’s influence in the visuals. Specifically for levels like cinnamon springs. I don’t know what it is exactly but there’s a clear inspiration
Actually, one game that I'm surprised NO one mentions was an inspiration to Anton Blast is Jazz Jackrabbit. A lot of the sound effects like the metal clanging noises come from that game, as well as the very 90s esque hip hop and new jack music. The way the collectables are distributed as well reminds me of the candies in Jazz Jackrabbit as well, since they're generally all over the place and mostly used for building score and while Wario Land does also have those, there's no score requirement for Anton Blast so the chips all over dont' have to be placed AS methodically to encourage reaching a certain score. Generally you're rewarded with being able to buy from a shop. but all the same, I got strong Jazz Jackrabbit/Windows 98 PC game vibes from this, especially with how the animated cutscenes and ESPECIALLY the pre-credits scene where the heroes escape and Burlo thanks them for saving his casino. That scene looked STRAIGHT out of a 90s PC game.
If I remember correctly, there’s even an Easter egg where you can see graffiti of Crash on one of the walls in the foreground of Boiler City near the beginning. I’ll have to double check to make sure though.
Yeah, I think a LOT of people probably imagined Anton Blast would play very similarly to Wario Land 4 or Pizza Tower and came in with that expectation, so it felt unusually sluggish and difficult to get a handle on, but as you play the levels and realize it's really it's own coat of paint and should be respected as such, the game starts to reveal where the real juice and jam is. Replaying the stages reveals an optional time trial mode reminiscent of the Crash Bandicoot time trials (something sorely missing from Pizza tower honestly despite that game really benefitting from a TT mode) and as a nod to PT fans who wanted that "stay afloat" challenge, there's the combo mode and the hidden "Cracked" ranking you get that effectively is the P rank in this game (only more hidden as you don't normally get ranks in this game). True to it's 90s era nature though, it's a game that rewards you the more you play it by being a game about discovery and skill building through mastering the controls and finding your own ways to get through. Basically as someone described Crash Bandicoot and why those games hold up even to this day, "It's easy for the beginner and difficult for the expert". The game never really punishes you for failure as it lets you take your sweet time to beat the stages (well...mostly, you still may die a lot but it's never too unforgiving) giving you the chance to familiarize yourself without the pressure of a perfect run, and then only introduces the HINT of a perfect run when you've already beaten the game so it's at your OWN pace. That is the mark of a truly good 90s platformer. Not focusing on wasting your time forcing you to perfect near impossible tricks just to see the ending like Super Meat Boy or other modern games, but defininig the difficulty by what the PLAYER chooses thier limit is while giving them personal goals to push themselves further. and they pulled it off PERFECTLY. PIzza tower was stupid hard to get P ranks at first, took me hours to finally get it in John Gutter and Pizzascape, but now, I can casually P rank levels all in one playthrough because of the practice I got getting used to the levels. Never required, but always encouraged. And AntonBlast did the same, I struggled heavily to get through stages and get used to the controls and learning the secrets, but the game never demanded me to master them at first, but when I saw the time trial and Combo modes, heard about the "CRACKED" ranking, saw how well placed the secret items are (some requiring you to retread old ground during Happy Hour and mastering the game's techniques like slingshotting off blocks and floating enemies to jump further), this is something that's only really "forced" on you in the final few levels and you learn that technique and try earlier levels and "OH! That's how you get the spraycan there!" and suddenly see your times slowly dropping down and soon, you finally get that Cracked ranking in Boiler City and THEN, it's Pizza time...er...Happy hour! That's what I think I like most about Anton Blast. it's proof positive that the games we enjoyed back then weren't just a Phase or Mario being the first to pull it off, it was an era where people made games that SQUEEZED the most gameplay out of the $50 2 hour games we'd rent at Block buster for a weekend, to encourage us to buy them forever and replay them forever.
Anyone else feel like "Wario like" type games are really how Sonic games should be like? Wario,Pizza Tower, and Anton have ridiculous speeds and momentum with extremely tight platforming controls.Even the 2D sonic games never felt like I was in as much control as with the wario type games.Like Sonic was slightly "floaty" or had a input delay. When you get to the tricker platforming sections in these games the momentum is there still, like going from 6th gear to 5th, then back to 6th.Sonic games, always felt like I was going through 6th gear, then had to slow down to 1st and wait for the next high speed section to hit 6th again.
i'd argue antonblast is more 6th gear for most of the level, slow down to 3rd gear for a platform section, then gun it back to 6th gear for more speed pizza tower on the other hand is 5th gear every hour all hour full blast except for transformations but then that's just 4th gear
@@commanderdemonno9819 Yeah it's more reminiscent of the classic genesis Sonic games where speed was a reward for playing well, but the game slowed down a lot to focus on platforming elements. Pizza tower feels like a more modern Sonic game where reaction time is more important to keep your speed up, while Anton is more classic where going fast is a reward for playing well.
@@MarioMastar I've started planning for a game that uses elements from PT, Freedom Planet (a combat focuses sonic-like) and classic sonic itself. Specifically it has the focus on abilities and movesets, where abilities that can help gain speed or distance help with boss fights, and outside of bosses, you can either take it slow and fight enemies or, if you can maintain a high enough speed, crash right through enemies and skip a lot of combat as well as not risk collision knockback or getting hit by attacks. The game would be built around being semi-fast with combat, where playing well allows you to go faster and therefore you get to skip a lot of combat if you can dodge everything. Some levels would be faster or slower, so some are more about high speed platforming where the level design basically gives you free speed, and others are slower and are designed more with simple puzzles and frantic combat with less dashing through everything. Even bosses would be designed around one idea: Like Pizza Tower and Classic Sonic, there are "intended" times to hit the boss for higher damage (like an attack combo worth) but unless the boss has an intangible aura (where it cannot be attacked) or a damage aura (where the boss' hitbox acts as an attack) you can wallop it most of the time you want to risk taking damage to defeat it faster.
I've been following this game's development since the Dynamite Demo came out on Steam in mid-2023 (remember when you had to pick the health beets out of the ground instead of breaking the crates?) and can definitely say this game was worth the wait. Glad it got all the time it needed for this level of polish
Absolutely. they could've just made a Wario Land or Pizza tower clone and called it a day, and the demo looked like it was shaping up to be a Wario Land 4 clone, but they found a way to really make it stand on it's own and not just from the aesthetics like the explosions and such, but also the gameplay and puzzles in the game feel very unique. Simple to understand, difficult but rewarding to master, but unlike Pizza Tower which relies on memorization and muscle memory to master, this game relies on skill and execution. It feels different, but is all the same so satisfying, even if you just came from Pizza tower or Wario Land. In fact it reminds me more of Jazz Jackrabbit which is a game no one really talks about but has very strong vibes here. Heck give Annie and Anton rabbit ears and swap thier colors and you literally have Jazz and Spaz. XD (well an extremely enraged Jazz and a more bloodthirsty Spaz, but all the same)
Don't see anyone mention it before, but Pinball Mire level has this acapella (or atleast acapella style) music in the background, part of it takes place in a cave, and the main gimmick is rolling in a ball Just like in Crash Twinsanity Cavern Catastrophe level! Crash and Cortex fall down a cave, and they both fight together, moving like they're a ball, and the whole ost is acapella (aka sung by real voices instead of instruments) While this might not be too convincing, maybe a coincidence, but one of the rooms is literally called "Cavern Catastrophe"
I just LOVE how they effectively made 2D Crash Bandicoot here. Sure we got a recent resurgance of Crash Bandicoot, but Crash was usually 3D except during the short GBA stint were he had a trio of rarely talked about 2D games, and while they are a lot slower paced than Anton Blast due to Crash's movement nature, (focusing more on precision platforming akin to Mario), it was nice they turned the box breaking mechanic into a proper speed game.
I noticed that too, and it made me really happy as someone who loves Twinsanity. One of the devil's pre-level cutscenes even has him joke about "Anton Twinsanity"
EDIT: As of December 6th, 2024, SummitSphere has confirmed that DLC starring Annie called ANNIEBLAST is in development, and more info is supposedly coming early 2025. Fun fact: Tony Greyson has said in interviews that Annie was partially inspired by Captain Syrup from WarioLand 2, and he also jokingly said that Annie’s relationship to Anton was inspired by Boris & Natasha from the old Rocky and Bullwinkle series.
The hammer jump is called a hammer vault, and the shoulder bashes are called clutch boosts and the devil is Satan. Yeah I'm a nerd for games like antonblast and pizza tower, whas you gonna do about it?
Email Nintendo and tell them "So..... Wario Land 7?" and see if they're ready to finally cook again. XD Just like Wargroove convinced them to restore Advance Wars. They're freaking COMATOSING some of thier best franchises here!
are the poker chips as coins really a balatro reference? antonblast as a demo was released like i think a year before balatro and used poker chips as coins back then
Love the first 2 floors, the 3rd floor so far has been a real let down. Still care enough to see the game through tho Loved The Big Bath, swim controls were great and I just wasn't expecting that spooky atmosphere from this game
4:34 REALLY surprised you didn't point out Crash Bandicoot as the biggest influence here besides Wario Land. 6:02 also brother this game was in development for years before Balatro came out Balatro did not invent Poker Chips
@@bossdoorhonestly I couldn't really tell it was a joke because of your voice, I feel like maybe you should maybe done a funny edit or a funny voice to really make the viewer able to tell it was a joke
I don't know about that comment on living or dying based on environmental variety. Yes it's always nice and important, but the New Super Mario series gets away with it because of its incentive level design. I feel like it hinges more on level design than aesthetics. Not to say aesthetics aren't inherently important, but level design is way more important
I just finish the game and it was a blast, the only thing really annoying to me, the awful difficulty spike between the game (like 5 hours 30 with near no grinde, not being really that good at those type of games) with 30 for each the final level and final boss that where nice but fucking hardcore compare to the rest
Fun fact: Gianni Matragrano (aka the voice of Gabriel from ultrakill) is the voice of satan, I found out about this today
Gabriel is a surprise guest boss in a really cool 2D character action/hack-and-slash game named Magenta Horizon.
Tough game, but with a lot to offer.
SEBASTIAN SOLACE TOOOO
I recognized his voice immediately, because I'm always watching his RUclips channel.
Changing sides.
Sh*t FOR REAL ?! I knew i recognized that voice !
The devs for Pizza Tower and Anton Blast are good friends. Peppino is even a playable character in Anton Ball. I like to think of these games as taking place in the same world.
Burlo does look like a relative of Peppino. XD Even has the same "I'm SO over it" expression every time you talk to him. It would be cool if Peppino or Noise were playable in Anton Blast, since the devs are discussing potential DLC campaigns if the game is popular enough.
I love all the crossover between Pizza Tower and Antonblast tbh. I hope one day we get a full on crossover game or something between them.
The pizza tower devs made a picture on Anton and Peppino making out.
AntonBlast is like a bomb: Explosive, loud, and powerful, but doesn't overstay its welcome. Leaves you with a massive impact.
I will NEVER get over Annie's perpetual slasher smile! I LOVE the design they gave to her! Just goes to show the GLOVES ARE OFF! It also helps all her vocal lines sound like she's perpetually tipsy but is putting up with it all, like when she says "oh boy..." as she's about to roll.
kinda surprised you mentioned inspirations I never would have thought of like Yoshi Island and Donkey Kong Country but didn't mention Crash Bandicoot as the devs mentioned many times it's a big inspiration and you can really see it in the game, especially some songs
Spoilers
The credits are straight-up a reference to the credits of Crash 1 and CTR
Funny, there's another solid 2D indie platformer from recently, which does a different thing every level, called Decline's Drops, where Yoshi's Island was named as an explicit inspiration by the dev.
Can recommend looking into it.
Yoshi’s island is my favorite childhood game and I immediately recognized it’s influence in the visuals. Specifically for levels like cinnamon springs. I don’t know what it is exactly but there’s a clear inspiration
Actually, one game that I'm surprised NO one mentions was an inspiration to Anton Blast is Jazz Jackrabbit. A lot of the sound effects like the metal clanging noises come from that game, as well as the very 90s esque hip hop and new jack music. The way the collectables are distributed as well reminds me of the candies in Jazz Jackrabbit as well, since they're generally all over the place and mostly used for building score and while Wario Land does also have those, there's no score requirement for Anton Blast so the chips all over dont' have to be placed AS methodically to encourage reaching a certain score. Generally you're rewarded with being able to buy from a shop. but all the same, I got strong Jazz Jackrabbit/Windows 98 PC game vibes from this, especially with how the animated cutscenes and ESPECIALLY the pre-credits scene where the heroes escape and Burlo thanks them for saving his casino. That scene looked STRAIGHT out of a 90s PC game.
If I remember correctly, there’s even an Easter egg where you can see graffiti of Crash on one of the walls in the foreground of Boiler City near the beginning. I’ll have to double check to make sure though.
Yeah, I think a LOT of people probably imagined Anton Blast would play very similarly to Wario Land 4 or Pizza Tower and came in with that expectation, so it felt unusually sluggish and difficult to get a handle on, but as you play the levels and realize it's really it's own coat of paint and should be respected as such, the game starts to reveal where the real juice and jam is. Replaying the stages reveals an optional time trial mode reminiscent of the Crash Bandicoot time trials (something sorely missing from Pizza tower honestly despite that game really benefitting from a TT mode) and as a nod to PT fans who wanted that "stay afloat" challenge, there's the combo mode and the hidden "Cracked" ranking you get that effectively is the P rank in this game (only more hidden as you don't normally get ranks in this game). True to it's 90s era nature though, it's a game that rewards you the more you play it by being a game about discovery and skill building through mastering the controls and finding your own ways to get through. Basically as someone described Crash Bandicoot and why those games hold up even to this day, "It's easy for the beginner and difficult for the expert". The game never really punishes you for failure as it lets you take your sweet time to beat the stages (well...mostly, you still may die a lot but it's never too unforgiving) giving you the chance to familiarize yourself without the pressure of a perfect run, and then only introduces the HINT of a perfect run when you've already beaten the game so it's at your OWN pace. That is the mark of a truly good 90s platformer. Not focusing on wasting your time forcing you to perfect near impossible tricks just to see the ending like Super Meat Boy or other modern games, but defininig the difficulty by what the PLAYER chooses thier limit is while giving them personal goals to push themselves further.
and they pulled it off PERFECTLY. PIzza tower was stupid hard to get P ranks at first, took me hours to finally get it in John Gutter and Pizzascape, but now, I can casually P rank levels all in one playthrough because of the practice I got getting used to the levels. Never required, but always encouraged. And AntonBlast did the same, I struggled heavily to get through stages and get used to the controls and learning the secrets, but the game never demanded me to master them at first, but when I saw the time trial and Combo modes, heard about the "CRACKED" ranking, saw how well placed the secret items are (some requiring you to retread old ground during Happy Hour and mastering the game's techniques like slingshotting off blocks and floating enemies to jump further), this is something that's only really "forced" on you in the final few levels and you learn that technique and try earlier levels and "OH! That's how you get the spraycan there!" and suddenly see your times slowly dropping down and soon, you finally get that Cracked ranking in Boiler City and THEN, it's Pizza time...er...Happy hour!
That's what I think I like most about Anton Blast. it's proof positive that the games we enjoyed back then weren't just a Phase or Mario being the first to pull it off, it was an era where people made games that SQUEEZED the most gameplay out of the $50 2 hour games we'd rent at Block buster for a weekend, to encourage us to buy them forever and replay them forever.
Anton blast was in development closed beta BEFORE pizza tower came out
Pizza Tower had a demo in 2018
Actually, the paint is color coded to the block you blew up to open that path! So they used red, blue, green, and yellow paint!
Anyone else feel like "Wario like" type games are really how Sonic games should be like? Wario,Pizza Tower, and Anton have ridiculous speeds and momentum with extremely tight platforming controls.Even the 2D sonic games never felt like I was in as much control as with the wario type games.Like Sonic was slightly "floaty" or had a input delay.
When you get to the tricker platforming sections in these games the momentum is there still, like going from 6th gear to 5th, then back to 6th.Sonic games, always felt like I was going through 6th gear, then had to slow down to 1st and wait for the next high speed section to hit 6th again.
i'd argue antonblast is more 6th gear for most of the level, slow down to 3rd gear for a platform section, then gun it back to 6th gear for more speed
pizza tower on the other hand is 5th gear every hour all hour full blast except for transformations but then that's just 4th gear
@@commanderdemonno9819 Yeah it's more reminiscent of the classic genesis Sonic games where speed was a reward for playing well, but the game slowed down a lot to focus on platforming elements. Pizza tower feels like a more modern Sonic game where reaction time is more important to keep your speed up, while Anton is more classic where going fast is a reward for playing well.
@@MarioMastar I've started planning for a game that uses elements from PT, Freedom Planet (a combat focuses sonic-like) and classic sonic itself. Specifically it has the focus on abilities and movesets, where abilities that can help gain speed or distance help with boss fights, and outside of bosses, you can either take it slow and fight enemies or, if you can maintain a high enough speed, crash right through enemies and skip a lot of combat as well as not risk collision knockback or getting hit by attacks. The game would be built around being semi-fast with combat, where playing well allows you to go faster and therefore you get to skip a lot of combat if you can dodge everything. Some levels would be faster or slower, so some are more about high speed platforming where the level design basically gives you free speed, and others are slower and are designed more with simple puzzles and frantic combat with less dashing through everything. Even bosses would be designed around one idea: Like Pizza Tower and Classic Sonic, there are "intended" times to hit the boss for higher damage (like an attack combo worth) but unless the boss has an intangible aura (where it cannot be attacked) or a damage aura (where the boss' hitbox acts as an attack) you can wallop it most of the time you want to risk taking damage to defeat it faster.
I've been following this game's development since the Dynamite Demo came out on Steam in mid-2023 (remember when you had to pick the health beets out of the ground instead of breaking the crates?) and can definitely say this game was worth the wait. Glad it got all the time it needed for this level of polish
Absolutely. they could've just made a Wario Land or Pizza tower clone and called it a day, and the demo looked like it was shaping up to be a Wario Land 4 clone, but they found a way to really make it stand on it's own and not just from the aesthetics like the explosions and such, but also the gameplay and puzzles in the game feel very unique. Simple to understand, difficult but rewarding to master, but unlike Pizza Tower which relies on memorization and muscle memory to master, this game relies on skill and execution. It feels different, but is all the same so satisfying, even if you just came from Pizza tower or Wario Land. In fact it reminds me more of Jazz Jackrabbit which is a game no one really talks about but has very strong vibes here. Heck give Annie and Anton rabbit ears and swap thier colors and you literally have Jazz and Spaz. XD (well an extremely enraged Jazz and a more bloodthirsty Spaz, but all the same)
green gremlin core
I think The Big Bath was actually inspired by the backrooms
I think it was more based off the poolrooma
Don't see anyone mention it before, but Pinball Mire level has this acapella (or atleast acapella style) music in the background, part of it takes place in a cave, and the main gimmick is rolling in a ball
Just like in Crash Twinsanity Cavern Catastrophe level!
Crash and Cortex fall down a cave, and they both fight together, moving like they're a ball, and the whole ost is acapella (aka sung by real voices instead of instruments)
While this might not be too convincing, maybe a coincidence, but one of the rooms is literally called "Cavern Catastrophe"
I just LOVE how they effectively made 2D Crash Bandicoot here. Sure we got a recent resurgance of Crash Bandicoot, but Crash was usually 3D except during the short GBA stint were he had a trio of rarely talked about 2D games, and while they are a lot slower paced than Anton Blast due to Crash's movement nature, (focusing more on precision platforming akin to Mario), it was nice they turned the box breaking mechanic into a proper speed game.
I noticed that too, and it made me really happy as someone who loves Twinsanity. One of the devil's pre-level cutscenes even has him joke about "Anton Twinsanity"
i'm willing to bet anything that seems to relate to Crash is intentional!
ANTONBLAST blasted your mind.
EDIT: As of December 6th, 2024, SummitSphere has confirmed that DLC starring Annie called ANNIEBLAST is in development, and more info is supposedly coming early 2025.
Fun fact: Tony Greyson has said in interviews that Annie was partially inspired by Captain Syrup from WarioLand 2, and he also jokingly said that Annie’s relationship to Anton was inspired by Boris & Natasha from the old Rocky and Bullwinkle series.
can't believe that coincidentally this game also changed your mind like Pizza Tower did
I really like the rhythm mechanic built into chaining dashes together.
flick fishing.
AntonBlast sure was mind blowing
6:03 🔥🔥🔥
The hammer jump is called a hammer vault, and the shoulder bashes are called clutch boosts and the devil is Satan.
Yeah I'm a nerd for games like antonblast and pizza tower, whas you gonna do about it?
Email Nintendo and tell them "So..... Wario Land 7?" and see if they're ready to finally cook again. XD Just like Wargroove convinced them to restore Advance Wars. They're freaking COMATOSING some of thier best franchises here!
Satan calls himself the Devil sometimes in the game, so it's not wrong at all
are the poker chips as coins really a balatro reference?
antonblast as a demo was released like i think a year before balatro and used poker chips as coins back then
Love the first 2 floors, the 3rd floor so far has been a real let down. Still care enough to see the game through tho
Loved The Big Bath, swim controls were great and I just wasn't expecting that spooky atmosphere from this game
compared to pizza tower lol. ..its like wario baby!!!
You should do a review on iddle dew 2
4:34 REALLY surprised you didn't point out Crash Bandicoot as the biggest influence here besides Wario Land.
6:02 also brother this game was in development for years before Balatro came out
Balatro did not invent Poker Chips
Balatro bit was a joke.
@@bossdoorhonestly I couldn't really tell it was a joke because of your voice, I feel like maybe you should maybe done a funny edit or a funny voice to really make the viewer able to tell it was a joke
I don't know about that comment on living or dying based on environmental variety. Yes it's always nice and important, but the New Super Mario series gets away with it because of its incentive level design. I feel like it hinges more on level design than aesthetics. Not to say aesthetics aren't inherently important, but level design is way more important
I just finish the game and it was a blast, the only thing really annoying to me, the awful difficulty spike between the game (like 5 hours 30 with near no grinde, not being really that good at those type of games) with 30 for each the final level and final boss that where nice but fucking hardcore compare to the rest
You could say, it was an ANTONBLAST.......
some poeple might even say this game *blew* your mind
ha
ha
ha