I always feel like I'm admitting to something when I talk about this game. "Hey, I beat Three Dirty Dwarves the other day! Boy, I love Three Dirty Dwarves. You gotta try Three Dirty Dwarves sometime! You just can't understand what you're missing - not until you experience Three Dirty Dwarves."
That said, I did have a good time with Three Dirty Dwarves. Ed Annunziata projects fascinate me by how strange and experimental they are. Like, until about a year ago I didn't really care for Mort the Chicken, but I always found something compelling about the bone-dry tone of the game's writing contrasted with how inherently doofy its protagonist and the central gameplay loop is. I feel like you could plot his games on a graph, where one axis represents how much dignity a title thinks it has versus how much dignity the game actually has. Ecco the Dolphin thinks and holds its dignity, Mr. Bones doesn't think it has a ton of dignity but it weirdly does, Mort the Chicken thinks it has way more dgnity than it actually has...
...and Three Dirty Dwarves has no dignity, nor is there any illusion about Three Dirty Dwarves having dignity. But that's what makes Three Dirty Dwarves so much fun.
It's a beat-em-up, ostensibly, but I'd actually just as quickly compare it to Battletoads 2020 and its "variety" genre, where the game will sometimes switch up what it's doing within the established parameters of its control scheme for... no real reason, just seemed interesting at the time. You can sort of tell that the world wasn't ready for this type of nonsense game design back in 1996, since a lot of the more experimental levels - "Bouncing Bed", "The Stadium", and "Trolley Ride", for example - are completely exorcized in multiplayer runs. I really think that's to the game's detriment, since the variety is what makes the game so interesting. The proper beat-em-up stages are fine, but there just isn't a ton of variety in what each of the dwarves can do. Weirdly it was "Bronx By Day" - the game's fifth stage, outta fifteen - that was the longest, most challenging wall. Did I just get used to the game's controls (and the idea that I could revive a fallen dwarf by beating him), and everything was smooth sailing after that point? Maybe, but it still felt odd that late game levels like "Riker's Island" and "Laser Research" weren't anywhere near as tough.
I'm deliberately avoiding being too specific in my description because I think a lot of the fun is seeing the next idea that the game wants to pull out, and rolling with the punches. I do think that's the appeal to it - if you're specifically going in looking for a contender to Streets of Rage or even Golden Axe, I don't think you're gonna find it. But if you go into it looking for a doofy party game with a weeeeeird premise, it's a pretty good time. Maybe stick to singleplayer and trade off play if you have buddies, but multiplayer exists, too.
And read the manual! One of those that makes me miss the lost art of making fun instruction manuals.
Also also - hot hell does the title theme/"Streets of Bronx" kick ass. Listen to it in stereo!!!
That said, I did have a good time with Three Dirty Dwarves. Ed Annunziata projects fascinate me by how strange and experimental they are. Like, until about a year ago I didn't really care for Mort the Chicken, but I always found something compelling about the bone-dry tone of the game's writing contrasted with how inherently doofy its protagonist and the central gameplay loop is. I feel like you could plot his games on a graph, where one axis represents how much dignity a title thinks it has versus how much dignity the game actually has. Ecco the Dolphin thinks and holds its dignity, Mr. Bones doesn't think it has a ton of dignity but it weirdly does, Mort the Chicken thinks it has way more dgnity than it actually has...
...and Three Dirty Dwarves has no dignity, nor is there any illusion about Three Dirty Dwarves having dignity. But that's what makes Three Dirty Dwarves so much fun.
It's a beat-em-up, ostensibly, but I'd actually just as quickly compare it to Battletoads 2020 and its "variety" genre, where the game will sometimes switch up what it's doing within the established parameters of its control scheme for... no real reason, just seemed interesting at the time. You can sort of tell that the world wasn't ready for this type of nonsense game design back in 1996, since a lot of the more experimental levels - "Bouncing Bed", "The Stadium", and "Trolley Ride", for example - are completely exorcized in multiplayer runs. I really think that's to the game's detriment, since the variety is what makes the game so interesting. The proper beat-em-up stages are fine, but there just isn't a ton of variety in what each of the dwarves can do. Weirdly it was "Bronx By Day" - the game's fifth stage, outta fifteen - that was the longest, most challenging wall. Did I just get used to the game's controls (and the idea that I could revive a fallen dwarf by beating him), and everything was smooth sailing after that point? Maybe, but it still felt odd that late game levels like "Riker's Island" and "Laser Research" weren't anywhere near as tough.
I'm deliberately avoiding being too specific in my description because I think a lot of the fun is seeing the next idea that the game wants to pull out, and rolling with the punches. I do think that's the appeal to it - if you're specifically going in looking for a contender to Streets of Rage or even Golden Axe, I don't think you're gonna find it. But if you go into it looking for a doofy party game with a weeeeeird premise, it's a pretty good time. Maybe stick to singleplayer and trade off play if you have buddies, but multiplayer exists, too.
And read the manual! One of those that makes me miss the lost art of making fun instruction manuals.
Also also - hot hell does the title theme/"Streets of Bronx" kick ass. Listen to it in stereo!!!