The arcade genre is full of so many archetypes. The collect-a-thon genre, once owned by Sonic the Hedgehog, is now noticeably void of options to play. Developer Total Monkey out of the United Kingdom has attempted to fill this rift with the new ID@Xbox title, Magnets: Fully Charged—an upgraded version of MagNets, originally released on Steam in January of 2015. Total Monkey states Fully Charged has overhauled visuals, upgraded performance, and new content. But, is that enough to make this quirky robot collect-em-up the arcade game we have been missing on the Xbox Marketplace?
Magnets: Fully Charged is heavily inspired by the games I grew up playing in the early ’90s. You play a small robot that, in typical arcade game fashion, must save his world from an attacking race of electric blocks called Bloxbots. You can jump, ground pound, and dash your way around these polarity pests; but the main hook to the game is using your electric charged magnetic net (MagNet) to turn the bots into scrap. The scrap is then taken to a recyclertron that converts the scrap into a part you need to progress the level. This is a novel idea that is easy to understand and works well.
The game has twenty different arenas, arranged in five levels in four worlds. Each arena tasks you with holding left trigger to drop a magnet, continuing to hold left trigger until a bloxbot wanders into your MagNet, then letting go of the left trigger to overcharge the bot. After doing this twice, each bloxbot drops five scrap, and the recyclertron requires increasing amounts of scrap each turn. At the fifth stage of each world, a boss battle ensues that also uses the same mechanic to win. These tasks begin to become monotonous every new level you come to. While it is fun throughout the first world, it is a little off-putting in world two, confounding in world three, and downright tedious in world four. This is for no other reason than you have continuously done the same thing over and over again.
While my major complaint with this game is the repetitions nature of the gameplay, it does have a host of other problems as well. Technically speaking, the magnetic net power works very well. It is responsive and controls the way it is expected to. However, I cannot say the same for the jump and the ground pound abilities. Multiple times I jumped to get away from hordes of blocks, only to land in a plant and be unable to move. The only recourse was to restart the level from the pause menu. Other times, I would jump in a direction different from where I was directing the thumbstick, making my character launch itself off a walkway to its death. The ground pound is also incredibly finicky. The move is used by first jumping, then pressing Y to slam down and stun enemies. Only, half of the enemies do not get stunned. Or you slam in a random direction where no enemies even stood.
The visuals of this game were indeed overhauled from the original version. The colors are vibrant, the characters are imaginative, and the world is inspired. The frame rate on the other-hand drops significantly when too many enemies are on the screen at once. This causes unavoidable and inexcusable lag in the single-player game. The game has an option for multiplayer, but it was locked at the time of writing this. Also, your life total seems to be arbitrary. After five hours in the game, I still cannot tell why sometimes an electric shot from a bot does zero damage and sometimes it takes two whole health bars. This also leads me to the difficulty curve. I beat every level of world one and two in a single try. The levels, each between three and five minutes, were very easy to complete. World three caused a couple of deaths as I learned to deal with missile launching bots, mini-bots, and helicopter bots.
Then came the final boss of world four. While I will not spoil the boss (which I do think is rather original and fun) the increase in the difficulty curve was extremely punishing. All of the previous types of bots were on the screen at once, along with the large and formidable boss character. You are tasked with beating the boss while dodging lasers, a shrinking platform, and at minimum fifty mini-bots, simultaneously. This level alone took me over an hour to complete, and left me feeling frustrated instead of accomplished.
Summary
MagNets: Fully Charged is a quirky, cute, nostalgia-filled arcade game that ultimately lacks the ability to capitalize on its strong start. The repetitive gameplay, staccato frame rate, and unforgiving final level really left a sour taste in my mouth. Hopefully the developers will be able to fix these issues and improve the experience.
Joshua was a regular ICXM contributor between 2016–2017, publishing 42 articles across game reviews, and Xbox news. Their work focused on hands-on reviews, platform commentary, and breaking-news reporting during the Xbox One X launch year and Microsoft’s wider Play Anywhere / UWP gaming initiative.