The Company Man is a 2-D action platformer that turns the minutia of working in an office into an adventure. This tongue-in-cheek game from Forust studios harkens back to retro staples like Mega Man. It joins fellow indie darlings like Cuphead and Hollow Knight in the endeavor to resecitate 2-D action game. This quirky indie game is available on PS4, X-Box One, Pc, and Nintendo Switch.
PLOT
Jim is the hero of The Company Man, a simple salaryman on a quest to become CEO of Good Water Company, where he has just started working. In the satirical world of The Company Man becoming CEO means battling your way through various departments by bashing them in the head with a keyboard and blasting them with E-Mails. There are occasional flashbacks giving Jim’s quest some context centered around his childhood experiences. Along the way, there are corporate conspiracies, lots of puns, and the occasional friendly NPC to talk to.
GAMEPLAY
The Company Man draws from action platformers of the past, particularly Mega Man X. The platforming is fairly straightforward, making use of a single jump and a dash mechanic. The combat starts off similarly stripped-down but there are power-ups that can be bought or earned that keep things fresh. Like other great 2-D action games much of the challenge comes from memorizing enemy attack patterns and then executing on them.
Even in the retr0-obsessed world of Indie games, this sort of pure 2D action platformer is something of a rarity. The levels are largely linear, with secrets that are fully optional and don’t require backtracking. Purchasing power-ups give some customization, but enough to veer the game into RPG territory. At its best moments, it feels like an updated Super Nintendo era action game.
PROS
The Company Man nails the irreverent, satirical tone it goes for. The game is never laugh-out-loud funny, but it’s brimming with clever little gags. The checkpoints are coffee stations, upgrades are bought from the overpriced lobby coffee shop, and the enemies fall into office place tropes. They even make the various exotic levels make sense in a cheeky pun-logic kind of way, my personal favorite being the ice-themed accounting department where the enemies are seeking to freeze spending. Alongside some fantastic animation, the game has a fun, cartoony, feel. The game’s humor helps sell its admittedly basic critique of capitalism and office culture.
The gameplay is also solid if a bit basic. Learning enemy attack patterns and countering them is fun and consistently satisfying. The platforming is simple but uses enough level-unique puzzle mechanics to stay consistently interesting throughout the course of the game. It doesn’t tread any new ground in the genre, mechanically, but it delivers a polished experience.
CONS
There aren’t any glaring problems with The Company Man, but there are a series of minor shortcomings that keep it from greatness. Narratively it lacks build-up. The tutorial level introduces the game’s central conceit, but it never really steps up in terms of how surreal or silly things get. Despite liking the game’s sense of humor and message, this lack of build-up left its story feeling a bit stale.
The game’s chief mechanical failure also comes from an inability to properly escalate the stakes. While the levels increased in difficulty and complexity, the boss fights gradually lagged behind the upgrades you received. As a result, the later boss fights became anti-climactic ways to end each level. It’s not just that these boss fights are too easy, they don’t build in terms of complexity. As a result, the later bosses felt both less memorable and less satisfying to defeat.
VERDICT
While The Company Man isn’t the world’s next Cuphead it is a fun, charming, 2-D action platformer. As both a retro-inspired game and a piece of satire it’s serviceable but shallow. I enjoyed my time with the game, but don’t have any desire to revisit it or its world. At $15.99 and available on Switch, PS4, X-Box One, and PC The Company Man is easy to recommend.
