Neo Harbor Rescue Squad [Review]
Neo Harbor Rescue Squad is a fast-paced very silly game following a team of paramedics (named of course the Neo Harbor Rescue Squad) on their quest to help the city’s residents, and improve their terrible reputation. It feels very much like the sort of Saturday morning cartoon that I watched in third grade. Therefore, It’s very fitting that the gameplay features a bunch of goofy micro games through which players do what would usually be really serious tasks, such as wrap bandages, hook up IVs, use a defibrillator and so much more. (Don’t worry, the game is very upfront that this is a game of silly shenanigans and does not resemble actual medical care). The result is a game that feels as if Trauma Center and Warioware had some strange illegitimate child after a passionate love affair. As someone who likes both games, I can’t argue with the results
Developer: BancyCo
Platforms: PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Microsoft Windows [Reviewed]
Genres: Action game, Adventure game, Simulation video game,
Publisher: BancyCo
The game follows as such – after an introduction cut scene, I was presented with a patient to triage, and treat through a range of microgames that take about 10–30 seconds. Some of the activities include pressing buttons at just the right time, rotating joysticks to keep the cursor in the highlighted area in a meter, lining up objects on the patient body and much more. All the patients must be treated before time runs out. Once the level is complete, I receive a grade based on how many of the patients I got to and from those patients how many treatments I completed successfully. Neo Harbor Squad has a nice sense of progression, with new stages adding more games and asking the player to do more in a row in between patients. It’s frantic fun, and to be honest, does remind me somewhat of the chaos of learning the ropes when I started working in Emergency Medicine.
While there were some really awesome ideas for the writing – including a disabled dispatcher who told jokes and kicked butt, and a talking dolphin engineer, the story just did not click with me. The characters felt cliched and predictable, and the story tedious and unfunny. As the game progressed, I ended up skimming these sections.
The story sections are pretty short, as are the gameplay sections, and the game seems split fifty-fifty between these two elements. As a whole, the game is pretty short, clocking in at 4–6 hours. I think this is a good thing in this case, as I didn’t want any additional story, and this allowed me to enjoy the gameplay loop without it getting stale. I think the length of the game opens it up to replayability and possibly even a game that could be speedrun. The only thing Neo Harbor Rescue Squad has to hold it back from this is the lack of ability to select and replay stages.
Overall, despite an underwhelming story, I appreciate Neo Harbor Rescue Squad. It does try to do something different, and with this the game succeeds. It’s a fun but challenging experience that engages players in a different sort of way.
SCORE: 7/10
Thank you to Terminals for the free key! Check out the game on Steam here!
