A Door-Slammin' Good Time

CD-i Nintendo fans have had an unexpectedly excellent year. First came Arzette, a game that set out to answer the question ”What if the CD-i Zelda games were good?” And you know what? It was great! Now, we have a new arcade-style game called Goliath Depot from Vidvad Games. It poses the question “What if Hotel Mario was good?” The answer is, well, a bit more complicated. 

The thing is, Hotel Mario isn’t actually a bad game. Sure, it looks bad on the surface, and it’s full of bad things, but overall, the gameplay loop works. If you have a functional controller, the game even plays just fine. It’s no masterpiece, but it’s a genuinely okay game to play. So reinventing the wheel on that one wasn’t really necessary. Fortunately, much like Arzette, Goliath Depot is more than just a simple refinement of what its predecessor established. 

Right off the bat, I have to say that Goliath Depot is not a very good name. I can’t tell you how many times I completely forgot the name of this game after it was first announced. It’s actually emblematic of a larger issue present throughout. There’s something about its identity that just feels off. There’s nothing specifically wrong with it, but it isn’t quite right either. The main character’s design, the game’s premise, it all feels a little undercooked. 

The good news is, that’s just the surface stuff. It would be great if Goliath Depot had the memorable personality of its contemporaries like Murtop or Donut Dodo, but with gameplay this good, it thankfully doesn't ruin the experience. 

Goliath Depot puts you in control of George, a warehouse worker at the Goliath Corporation. Just like in Hotel Mario, his goal is to close all the doors in the stage. It’s as weird a concept as ever, but at last this time there’s a lot more to the gameplay than just that. The biggest difference comes in the sound that the doors make when slammed. Whenever George closes a door, sound waves cross the screen, knocking enemies down. You can then go take care of them by punting them off the screen a-la Mario Bros. But it doesn’t stop there! There are all sorts of other minor mechanics that get introduced as you go, eventually incorporating elements of other classic arcade games like Mappy in the process. 

There are boss encounters too, which while sometimes are quite maddening, are rather clever in how they go about using the door-slamming mechanic. 

It fits right in with the recent trend of arcade-inspired hits, several also from publisher Flynn’s Arcade, who were nice enough to supply a review code to me. 

I had a very good time playing Goliath Depot, but I wish I liked it more. It’s by no means a bad game, quite the opposite, but those presentation issues really stand in the way of it being truly great. It animates well, the music is a blast, but the stage and character designs, as well as the forgettable name, hold it back from becoming a true classic. 

It’s absolutely worth playing for fans of the genre, especially CD-i nuts like myself. Just temper your expectations ever so slightly. 

Goliath Depot is currently available on Nintendo Switch and Steam.