by Wicked Plague is a Metroidvania for the Game Boy Color developed by LocusMotion and published by ModRetro in 2025.
The premise isn’t the simplest, but it’s not complicated either. You play as Ramuel, a young exterminator working on a contract. However, you don’t exterminate rats or other mundane creatures. You exterminate supernatural monsters. In this case, zombies. With your trusty Gun-Lighter, you’ll blast and burn zombies and other supernatural creatures as you explore the building you’ve been sent to. All the while, you’ll find out the reason for the infestation.
Gameplay
The controls are pretty much what you’d expect for a Metroidvania on the Game Boy Color. The D-Pad moves Ramuel in the corresponding direction, the A button jumps, the B Button is your basic attack; pressing up on the D-Pad and B fires a projectile, Select uses a healing item, and the Start button pauses the game.
The controls themselves are very responsive, and the basic gameplay feels great. There is a bit of lag after an attack, but it’s pretty minimal. This delay is probably due to hardware limitations.
Unlike other Metroidvanias, your new abilities aren’t tied to finding a specific item in a specific location; you gain them as you reduce your hangover level. You reduce your hangover level by drinking energy drinks. There are two types. Green Monster, sometimes called Green Beast, and Shotgun Head. These two energy drink types not only reduce your hangover level but also increase your melee and ranged attacks, respectively. Once your hangover is reduced to an appropriate level, you unlock a new ability. Every time you unlock a new ability, you receive a tutorial explaining it.
A word of warning. Make sure you are playing the newest update. I played the 1.0 version, and I did not receive the tutorial for the second ability. Since I didn’t know I had a new ability, it took me longer to finish the game than it would have otherwise. The 1.1 version seems to have fixed this issue.
A cool detail I noticed was that there is at least one area where you can face an alternate boss depending on which way you go while exploring. Whichever of the two you come across first is the one you will be fighting for that playthrough. The story is also subtly different depending on which one you fight.
It is shorter than I expected and had less backtracking than I expected for a Metroidvania. However, that’s not a bad thing. A short-sweet experience like this is nice when there are so many games out there competing for our time.
Overall, I really enjoyed the gameplay.
Graphics
The graphics in Wicked Plague are really quite good. The sprites are good, the animations are great, and the backgrounds are fantastic. The bosses and named characters stand out immediately.
The backgrounds are very detailed and make good use of negative space. The graffiti mural, some statues, and a portrait in the background were particularly impressive. The backgrounds really sell the idea that this place is infested with supernatural monsters.
All in all, the graphics are very impressive.
Music and Sound
I really like the music, and I’m probably going to have some of it stuck in my head for a while. There is some pretty good variety too. Each section of the map has its own track, and even the vending machine screen has music of its own.
The sound effects are pretty good, too. The attacks and abilities have very satisfying sound effects, which helps make them feel more fun to use.
Difficulty
I’m a long-time Metroidvania player; Wicked Plague felt a bit too easy to me. Especially when the game is marketed as having brutally difficult bosses. I died maybe 2-4 times in total, and only 2 of those were to bosses. I think it’s definitely harder than a lot of modern games, but the difficulty did not live up to my expectations.
Final Verdict
I really enjoyed my time in Wicked Plague. If you like Metroidvanias or you want a short and sweet new Game Boy Color game, I can definitely recommend it. You can buy the game for $40 on ModRetro.
