Teddy Gangs (Switch) review "Who knew beating the stuffing out of bears could be so teddy-ous?"

The finished product behind Teddy Gangs blows my mind, and not in a good way. Given what we've seen retro throwbacks and adorable works offer over the years, this game could have gone in a multitude of directions. Someone could have easily concocted a child-friendly brawler or a stuffed animal-themed platformer, and those would have been at least acceptable choices. Hell, even a slightly edgier Build-A-Bear Workshop-style simulator would have been something. All of those suggestions only take into account “G-rated” material, though. There's nothing stopping a developer from crafting another irreverent comedy in a similar vein to Conker's Bad Fur Day, and even that might have sufficed.

Instead, what we received was the blandest, shallowest beat 'em up imaginable...

True to its premise, this game meshes both gang-based mayhem and cute little teddy bears, then proceeds to accomplish the bare minimum (er, bear minimum?) with that fusion. You assume the role of a teddy and punch other teddies until they're dead. That's it. I'm not kidding. When the app kicks off, you get a choice of one or two players, then you select one of four locations: a rooftop, an even wider rooftop, a shipyard, and a storage facility. Apart from cosmetics, the only real differences between these digs lies in the rooftop levels, where falling off the building results in instant death for any stuffy.

After selecting a level, the game sticks you with a bear donning a punk rock skull shirt. You get no other customization or character selection options, not that it would matter anyway. All you can do is throw punches. You get no snazzy combo moves, jumping maneuvers, kicks, grapples, weapons, or any other fighting features that have been mainstays of the genre since the '80s. In other words, this affair proves to be so lacking in features and functions that it feels archaic. Even age-old quarter munchers like Double Dragon and Crime Fighters showcase more advancements than this brawler.



After jumping in, you might expect some basic level progression, but even that notion goes out the window once you've scrolled far enough to the right. You soon realize every stage merely serves as a small arena in which criminal bears appear, waiting to pick the most boring fights with you. Your foes materialize, randomly colored and clad in in the kind of gear you may have wanted to place on your own combatant. You approach them and press the one and only action button on offer, which executes a flurry of standard punches. There isn't much strategy involved here; you just swing with reckless abandon and hope the opposition doesn't get many blows in. And that's it. You just keep punching and punching and watching as plush bodies pile up, vanish, and reappear. Occasionally, you battle a taller teddy that requires a few more haymakers than the previous batch. Meanwhile, your kill count increases for absolutely no reason except to serve as a record for you to pointlessly break in future replays.

After death, you head back to the main menu so you can begin anew, finding no other options or functions, such as leaderboards or unlockables. As far as I can tell, there are none, and that's a damn shame. I don't like to come across so harshly, but what really as the point of this title? It provides almost nothing that hasn't already been done by myriad games over decades, and even those from eons ago on much older hardware outclass the hell out of this one. Seriously, this title has nothing on Mighty Final Fight.

In a way, Teddy Gangs reminds me of one of the fifty-two offerings from Action 52, except that this one proves to be at least stable and colorful. That's really all Gangs has going for it. However, what I'm driving at is this: it feels like it was developed by someone who only had a passing notion of what its genre entails. For instance, most of Action 52's shooters apparently understand the rudimentary mechanics of a shmup: the level scrolls, you move vertically or horizontally, and you blast things that approach you. However, those games misunderstood what actually goes into a shoot 'em up: careful enemy placement, ship selections, upgrades, desperate moments, expert-level hand-eye coordination, and colorful scenery that helps reinforce the game's narrative.



Brawlers can function (and have functioned) in a similar way. There's more to this category than merely walking around and punching people. You typically get your choice of a few different characters with varied move sets and statistics. Stages spawn a variety of enemies who perform differing actions, some of which prompt you to prioritize your targets. You might focus on some of the weaker ones occasionally so you can weed them out, or head straight for the biggest and baddest mutha on the block so you can have that threat neutralized early. Each level also takes you to different locations, capping off with an intense boss encounter against a wickedly designed villain that forces you to think outside of the “punch first, ask questions later” box.

Teddy Gangs does nothing even close to that. It's like someone made a brawler where you endlessly fight the campaign's first adversary. Imagine playing Double Dragon, except you only enter about one-tenth of the first level, and you only battle bottomless waves of the dude in the tank top. Sure, the tank top changes colors, and sometimes he has a silly hat or a tie, but let's face it: it's the same guy over and over again. It blows my mind how an offering this lacking in content made it past Nintendo's once-famous QA.

So do yourself a favor if you're a beat 'em up fan: don't bother with Teddy Gangs. It's a huge waste of time and money, bearing almost no boon whatsoever. Sure, it functions just fine, but no one enters a game thinking, “I don't care if it bores the hell out of me, as as I can move and utilize at least one button.” Your free time is worth more than this.

Staff review by Joseph Shaffer (September 15, 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.