I can’t remember exactly what I was into at the age of five, but if I were to hazard a guess, I’d say the delightfully clashing worlds of He-Man and Postman Pat. As for video games, I almost certainly knew of them, but still had a couple of years to go until owning a vastly discounted Atari 2600. It’s a bit hazy. Years from now, Malachai Nicolle will be able to pinpoint exactly what they were doing when they were five years old: helping create the world of Axe Cop, a web comic that’s now a video game, with assistance from their much older brother Ethan.
This RPG uses the web comic as its source, including its lengthy cast of returning oddball characters, and has an all-new story penned by Malachai Nicolle – a literal five-year-old, should you need another reminder. It was first released on PC in 2020 and has now found its way to consoles. Since the web comic first aired, Axe Cop has gone on to gain a comic book deal via Dark Horse Comics, and a two season animated TV series. There’s clearly an assumption that anyone going into this RPG will be familiar with the franchise, as Axe Cop and his police officer cohort Flute Man are introduced in the briefest of fashions.
In fact, after barely ten minutes, players are thrown into a prehistoric world to find and kill a bunch of dinosaurs, before placing their heads on pikes to remind everyone of Axe Cop’s willingness to chop bad guys’ heads off. That’s kind of his deal. This opening isn’t too taxing, introducing the turn-based combat system and explorational elements well. Action then relocates to the police station HQ – which is where Axe Cop and his team return to after each mission. From here, the town can be accessed, which has several item vendors and a few quest-giving NPCs to interact with mid-mission. Back inside the HQ, new missions are accessed by Axe Cop’s computer, resulting in travelling across the universe on the back of a dinosaur. A dinosaur with mini-guns for arms, because, well, you should know by now.
Gradually, Axe Cop starts to assemble a team of good guys to tackle an unruly gang of bad guys. Every new recruit has skills to use both in and out of combat, which ties into both exploration and puzzle solving. Each mission takes place in a new location – including a multifloored laboratory, a snowy mountain range, and a zombie ridden take on London – and you’ll need to swap characters often to progress. Axe Cop’s dog Ralph Wrinkles can sniff out hidden items, Sockarang can throw his sock arms as boomerangs to hit far away switches, while Bat Warthog Man grapples across large gaps. Flute Cop meanwhile ‘evolves’ over time, initially able to interact with music-activated statues, and later able to turn into a ghost to travel back in time.
Eventually joining the team are two ninjas– one that can climb walls by turning into a werewolf, while the other carries a flame sword that illuminates dark areas. Oh, and there’s Baby Man – a man dubiously dressed as a baby, who can push blocks and other objects around. This motley crew are up against such villains as Bad Santa Claus, Dr. Stinkyhead, and Dr. Doo Doo, with stock enemies including robots, dinosaurs, zombies, snowmen, and poop. On that note, there are a lot of poop jokes. Indeed, the game world, characters, and dialogue could have only come from a five-year-old, making for an experience that can only be described as pleasingly random.
As indie RPGs go, this has most of the genre staples, making it evident that this isn’t the developer’s first brush with the genre. Enemies roam environments randomly, easily avoided until they give chase. Walking off screen makes enemies vanish, so if there are too many in one area, walking around usually reduces their numbers – or makes them vanish entirely. Colliding commences a turn-based battle. Characters have a single standard attack and a bunch of gradually unlocked special moves that drain MP – some of which are quite creative – while an assortment of fruit and junk food is used to restore health. Flying enemies can only be hit with projectiles, adding the need to think accordingly, and there are often prompts of when a heavy hitting attack is imminent. Battles cannot be fled, however, and it’s impossible to dodge or block. Instead, enemies must be paralysed to prevent hefty blows. After a dozen or so encounters, characters level up and there’s a bunch of attributes to invest in. Vitamins grant instant stat upgrades, allowing a single character to become overpowered if you so desire. Characters not in your party won’t gain XP, but that’s not a huge blow, as chances are you’ll be switching them out often while puzzle solving and exploring.
It’s inspired by the NES era visually, complete with characters shaded in a single colour. Portraits are well drawn and expressive, and bosses often fill the screen. As well as large sprites, it also has a few modern effects that wouldn’t be possible on the NES. The music is also fitting for the era its mimicking, and while not bad it does grow repetitive over time, and there’s no battle music to act as a reprise.
In addition to boss battles against colossal beasts, a few mini-games feature, including an isometric skiing game, and a word-based hacking game. A couple of these did feel half-baked, though, including an unskippable croquet match with woolly physics, and a block matching puzzler in which the bombs meant to destroy unwanted blocks appear unusable. Every mission has its own objective too, with Dr. Stinkyhead’s ten floored lab entailing finding keycards and unlocking doors, while the sci-fi themed mission has 200 pieces of scrap to locate to build an army of drones – with no surplus pieces. This resulted in around 20 minutes of backtracking to locate the final scrap piece.
As there’s no main quest log, progress can be similarly taxing at times. Having to search multiple rooms for a single terminal to interact with or find the correct spot to use Ralph Wrinkles’ scent finding isn’t uncommon. Later, it’s essential to return to previously completed areas to use newfound skills. A jaunt back to the snow planet resulted in 20 minutes of wandering to find a single wall that could be climbed. While it’s fortunate that it’s possible to warp to different areas freely, it pays to make a mental note of areas you may need to return to. An on-screen mini map would have helped massively. Should combat start to frustrate, there is a workaround in the form of a powerful dinosaur summon that can be exploited. If you’re stuck when exploring though, you’re on your own – there’s very little handholding unless you save, quit, and reload – which will provide a brief mission reminder.
Unsurprisingly, I do have an axe to grind here. Axe Cop, as lightheaded and well-meaning as it is, is still something of an odd proposition. This is a fully fledged 20+ hour RPG, largely hanging on the jokey premise of being written by a five year old. There are only so many poop jokes one person can take, and instead of developing its cast, it merely introduces more characters – by the game’s end, the cast is approaching 50 strong. Sadly, this doesn’t mean it’s ideally suited to younger gamers who may find the premise a hoot, or intrigued by the elongated cast list’s somewhat amusing backstories. The long runtime makes it a bit of a slog, and the lack of guidance makes it too tricky for younger folk. You’d have to be familiar with the world of Axe Cop already, or heavily into irrelevant humour, to get the most out of it.
Red Triangle Games’ Axe Cop is out now on all formats. Published by Electric Airship.