Our planet is under attack from the Star Spores, and they've mutated life on Earth into ferocious uber-bugs and carnivorous plant life–and even changed the laws of gravity... You are space marine Sgt. Varlette, and during a mission you are attacked by an alien creature that affixes itself to your head! Your sister, a renowned surgeon, cannot remove it without killing you, but you find that your agility and strength have been enhanced by its presence, and you now have the capabilities of a super soldier, the alien gives you incredible physical strength and other amazing newfound abilities. Naturally, as you have nothing to lose, your commanding officer Captain Knox kindly volunteers you for the mission to destroy all of the star spores and save the planet. You'll also meet the prissy officer Alaric, a former friend that seems to have a bug up his ass rather than on his head and doesn't trust you. Choppa Papa the dropship pilot is a friendlier face, and although he appears to be a drug-addled hippie living in the Vietnam era, is a skilled enough pilot to drop you and evacuate you from every mission.
For gamers of a certain age or with a disposition towards classic side-scrolling platform/shooters, Chainstaff will be manna from heaven. Shadow of the Beast, Metal Slug and Contra are often mentioned as inspirations for Chainstaff and having slogged my way through at least two of those years ago I can see the comparisons. I set out on my Chainstaff career hoping it would be a bit easier than those two rock hard old b*stards.
After a gentle training level and learning phase that idealistic nonsense got smashed right out of me, with countless humiliating deaths and not all through combat–some of the platforming is murderously hard too! I can’t really understand how I used to play the aforementioned games with a joystick that had a single button, or a much simpler digital controller like the SNES or Megadrive, but Chainstaff leaves me feeling like I'm both mentally and physically deficient. Fiddling with the button mapping improved things but Chainstaff is hard–very hard, and unforgiving too, but at least the checkpoints are fairly kind...
The alien parasite endows you with the Chainstaff–a morphing, telepathically-controlled thrown power weapon that can also be used as a grapple hook, a defensive barrier or a telescopic climbable tower. You also have an upgradable rifle so the combinations of possibilities during combat are practically endless!
Between killing hundreds of weird bugs and squiggly-wigglies you'll encounter injured human soldiers–a "HELP" bubble makes their presence obvious, but not always how to get to them due to some devilish level design. Every now and then you'll feel like you haven't explored an area fully and doing so will often reveal an injured ally. Get to them and you have a choice of evacuating them with a jetpack, tearing their heart out or eating their brains! Each choice brings an upgrade of a different type, and affects which of the 3 endings you'll get on completing the game.
I'd love to say that Chainstaff brought back happy memories while putting a modern slant on a classic genre, but it didn't. The simple reason is that, initially at least, it's too darned hard to be enjoyable, and if it's too hard for me, it'll be too hard for most other gamers too. Multi-stage boss fights that send you back to stage one if you die aren't my idea of fun–no matter how spectacular they are, nor are bosses that kill you with a single hit. Cheats are available via the Chainstaff Discord channel–and I'm not surprised.
There are also constant old-school issues like the camera not keeping up with the action, daft respawn points resulting in unfair deaths, enemies that are indestructible but aren't supposed to be, and being hit by enemies that are off-screen—but to be fair you can often return the favour–once you know where they are, and the Chainstaff is an awesome defensive item.
I'd categorise Chainstaff as well worth looking at if:–
You yearn for the days of yore.
You're an ace gamer with the hand/eye coordination of a fighter pilot.
You're a masochist.
You've finished all your other games 100%.
You have the patience of a saint.
You never rage quit.
You don't care for state-of-the-art graphics.
You want a serious challenge.
Having said all that, the difficulty curve seems pretty well matched to the upgrades available for your Chainstaff and rifle, and the developer (Nathan, 7who is clearly bonkers) has just released a Hard Mode update, which features higher difficulty, new challenges and creatures–so I must be totally wrong and you should disregard most of the preceding 800 words and buy it now–at the price of only £12.49 you can't really go wrong.
Many thanks to Mommy's Best Games and JF Games PR