#BLUD Review: An Adventurous But Clunky Homage To Cartoon Network's Classics

screenrant.com:

Vampires, field hockey, and goth slackers: the new action-adventure game is nostalgic ambrosia, a theoretical adaptation of a Cartoon Network series from decades past. Published by Humble Games, Exit 73 Studios’ video game debut is a love letter to late-90s/early-00s cable TV toons, packaged around light -styled gameplay and an irascible main character, clad in mauve and ready to rumble with bloodsuckers and bullies alike. has some good ideas and a great aesthetic hook, though it's hampered by stiff controls and half-baked questing.

Becky Brewster just moved to town, but already missed the bus to school. Her patient, elbow-ribbing dad Dave knows his resourceful daughter will get where she needs to go, leaving her to recon the town and meet its inhabitants, a booming cast which becomes one of ’s best features. There’s a considerable length of time before the game’s action really takes off, but the various adults and schoolkids who mill about each scene are fun to meet, a group of basic but well-realized archetypes, like the stuck-up trendsetter, nerdy tinkerer, or sporty popular clique.

’s title is a bit goofy, but intended to represent a social media typo. Becky posts this casually blundered hashtag on her Perch social media app, integrated into the game’s menu screen as a riff on X which keeps her linked to her pint-sized team. It’s an ingenious idea meant to keep track of side quests and flesh out conversations with the cast, adding more color to the game's basic tasks.

Sadly, it's part of a cumbersome menu system leading to pages for maps, upgrades, different collectibles, and the grimoire, a magical tome Becky inherited from her mother, something of a champion against the occult herself.The majority of the game’s elements could have been relegated to half as many screens, and it lacks a quick map-only button, leading to endless page-flipping any time the player has a question about what to do next.

The novelty of characters offering hints in replies to a