Dudes with Attitude

Dudes with Attitude is a hybrid RPG, beat-em-up and independent fighting game with a sci-fi, fantasy and superhero theme developed by Jaeger-Box Studios and published by Adult Swim. The game is available for PlayStation 4 and 5, X-Box Series X, Nintendo Switch and PC

The game chronicles the surreal misadventures of a girl who is part of an ancient lineage of magical monster-hunting warriors and a boy who gained the ability to transform into a hyper-powerful combat android after coming into contact with a type of digital alien entity, and how their paths crossed and they, along with a few other young people, became the defenders of their city

The game is a love letter and affectionate parody of tokusatsu, horror and superhero films

GAMEPLAY
Dudes with Attitude is a role-playing video game where you can choose to play between two customizable protagonists, Lucas and Kimiko, an extroverted boy from the outskirts and the introverted middle daughter of an upper-middle class Japanese immigrant family, the point of view from which the story will be told will depend on who you choose, and your initial circle of friends will change depending on the protagonist you choose. The game has a day-and-night cycle with changes in the weather, which can slightly affect gameplay, something similar to a social simulator, at school you can carry out activities such as tests and also participate in clubs, outside of school you have the Huge map of the city of Cabo Seco to explore, where you can get part-time jobs that can increase your XP and also give you coins to buy items, such as clothes to further customize your character. At school, you can establish relationships with other students, relationships that can become increasingly stronger throughout the gameplay, some of which can even evolve into a romance (the gender of the chosen protagonist does not affect the romantic part of the game at all, you can date men even with Lucas and you can also date women even with Kimiko), you can even recruit some specific characters for your party and they become playable during the combat segments of the game.

Along with the social simulation RPG in the school life part, the game also has a side focused on combat which is a hybrid of a beat-em-up with a fighting game, there are both story mode missions and side missions given by the NPCs, where you face more mundane enemies like gang members. During fighting gameplay you can switch between playing as Blaster-Boy (Lucas' superheroic alter-ego) and as Glow-Girl (Kimiko's superheroic alter-ego) and while you are playing as one, the other will automatically hit on other enemies, the more your party increases with other superheroes, the more playable characters you will have at your disposal during fights. During boss fights, the game changes from a beat-emup and becomes a fighting game, where you can switch between characters in your party during combat. After you finish the game's story mode, you can freely explore the city of Cabo Seco, switching between any character you want.

COMBAT MODE:
The game also has a combat mode, which is purely a fighting game, where you not only have all the playable hero characters, but you also have some super villains at your disposal and some more secret characters that can be unlocked. The fighting gameplay has a tag-team system, which allows the player to switch between 3 different characters during the fight, it also has a mechanic called "team-up", where the player can call one of the inactive characters during the fight to perform a combo combining the abilities of the called character with those of the character the player is using at that moment.

The combat mode has two variations, the Arcade Mode, where you play against bots in a type of tournament, the local multiplayer mode, where you and a friend can fight against each other, and the online mode, where you can face several players around the world.

SETTING AND CHARACTERS

 * Main article: List of Dudes with Attitude characters

The story of the game takes place in the fictional city of Cabo Seco, in the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Cabo Seco is a huge metropolis in development, which despite being glimpsed, has a serious problem related to crime, organized crime has been taking over every account of the city more and more and no one knows how to solve it.The game's setting is quite anachronistic, as the city is a place full of super modern buildings with neon lights, but all the characters dress and act as if they were in the late 90s and early 2000s.

PLOT
To Be Additioned

WRITTING
In 2020, Luís Pedro wrote a 37-page script called "Blaster-Boy and Glow-Girl", whose original idea was to be the pilot for a superhero-themed animated series with some elements from monster movies and horror B, he showed this script to a friend, who told him that this concept would be very interesting for a fighting video game, which sparked something in Pedro's mind.Soon Pedro was lengthening the script, to serve as the story mode of an RPG, introducing more characters and expanding the universe. He presented the premise and mechanics ideas he had for the game to executives at Devolver Digital, who quickly accepted the proposal, as a fighting RPG was something the company had never tried before.

ART DESIGN
Luís Pedro acted not only as a scriptwriter, but also as an art director, and he worked together with the artist Carles Dalmau, who acted as a character and production designer to create the entire visual identity of the game and its universe. The duo chose to use two different aesthetics, for daytime sessions, the game would have a very comic and colorful aesthetic, an aesthetic very inspired by Marvel and DC comics in the 70s/80s, mainly in the works of Jack Kirby, already in Night sequences, the game would have a dirtier and bolder aesthetic, but still with very bright colors, something similar to sci-fi anime from the 80s/90s

SOUNDTRACK
The game's music is an orchestral score, written by Bear McCreary, Bill Kiley, Rainbowdragoneyes and Narayana Johnson. The team had full creative control to create the game's soundtrack, to match the game's aesthetics and inspirations, the soundtrack had a lot of influence on super-sentai themes from the 70s and also on Danny Elfman's soundtracks for films like Batman and Spider-Man, i.e. epic superheroic orchestras. But the soundtrack also had a dark side, as it also had sequences inspired by the theme songs from sci-fi B films from the 50s/60s.