Tackle for Loss Review

Normally, I do not play many sports games unless they are of the Mario variety. However, as of late, I have been watching a lot of NFL, especially since I was talked into joining a Fantasy Football League. So, when I saw Tackle for Loss, I recognised the art style from Gameday Mayhem!!, another title that Indifferent Penguin released and one that I had played before. I was curious to see how a game that focuses mainly on tackling enemies, instead of traditional football rules, would work.

The game begins at night, and a little girl named Sara — apparently your daughter — asks you to chase the ghosts away because they keep interrupting her tea party. Our protagonist, Joe, is decked out in a football uniform, including a helmet, and he is ready to take on the threat. Basically the only thing you learn is how to tackle by pressing the bottom face button, allowing you to take out the seven ghosts prowling around the area. With the phantoms gone, it is time to continue the tea party. The screen glitches, almost as if you are watching a VHS tape, and then Sara asks you to check on Ivan. Joe is confused and asks who Ivan is. Apparently, she is referring to Ivan “Ironface”, a man with a metal lower jaw. Sara says she is afraid and asks you to save her.

Joe wakes up from what he believes was a dream, wondering where his daughter is. Starting in the basement, you begin to explore the very messy house. You quickly notice that there are some strange things going on, such as doors chained shut to keep you out and a person standing in front of the fireplace whom you do not recognise. He claims to be a subtenant, and, by choice, you are the one living in the basement. Your family is long gone, and you suffer from memory loss, which makes sense considering Joe has likely had many concussions during his years as a football player and all this tackling. The first thing you try to do is figure out what happened to Sara.

Each mission you play has multiple stages to complete. The first stage has you taking out four enemies, and you only have four attempts (tackles), much like a football game with four downs. If you run out of tackles before defeating the required number of foes, you have to start all over again. The game keeps track of your current number of attempts, as well as how long you have been playing, which is shown in the graphic at the bottom of the screen. The frustrating part is that the enemies you are meant to tackle are equipped with guns. If you get shot even once, it is game over, and it tells you to “Git Gud”, or suggests that maybe this title is not for you as the mission restarts.

For a while, I started to think that maybe the game was right and that Tackle for Loss was not for me. I found it quite challenging having to defeat five enemies with only four tackles, but I slowly began to make progress. I was always excited whenever I saw the white arrow pointing towards the next area. After multiple attempts, I finally met Ivan, the man your daughter wanted you to speak with. He tells you that your daughter went missing five years ago, and a battle begins between the two of you. After a couple of hits, the screen turns red, and you have apparently killed him. The screen then displays the word, “Touchdown!”

With the first mission complete, you once again start in the basement, but this time you find a golden key and a note telling you to come upstairs. This key opens the lock holding the chains on the door you saw earlier, leading to an area where you can finally use all the XP coins you have collected from defeated enemies. These coins are incredibly important, as they allow you to purchase new abilities for our football player. At this point, the game felt much fairer.

There is a hallway of doors with coin slots that allow you to learn new abilities, such as Momentum I. It costs eight coins to unlock, but this ability lets you attack in quick succession to gain extra actions. After each kill, you have a short time window, measured by the green Momentum Bar, to get another free kill. If you are quick enough, you can chain kills together to clear an area efficiently. Once unlocked, other ability doors become available, including Tackle I, Ball I, and upgrades like Painkillers. Not being restricted to only four base tackles greatly reduced the frustration I felt early on.

Tackle for Loss looks like a game you might have seen on the original Nintendo. The sprites and environments are fully pixelated and use a basic colour palette. The music follows suit, mimicking chiptune tracks from that era. I also have to mention that the sound effects are excellent, especially the satisfying noise when a coin drops from a defeated enemy. All of this, combined with the VHS-style visual filter, gives the game a nostalgic feel that I really enjoyed.

Tackle for Loss is a challenging title, particularly at the beginning, until you unlock new abilities that make the stages feel more manageable. The aesthetic screams retro, with its pixelated characters and VHS tape effects. One of the most interesting aspects of the game is its story. It is non-linear and jumps around as you move from memory to memory, speaking to different people about events that may or may not have happened. It is difficult to know what the truth is, as the narrator is unreliable.

If you are a fan of classic videogame aesthetics, American-style football, and simply enjoy smashing enemies, this game might be right up your alley. It is not as easy as it sounds, but once you unlock new abilities, it becomes far more accessible as you piece together what happened to this once-popular football player and the strange events unfolding in his life.