My Night Job Review (Switch & PC)

If you’re going to give me any responsibility at all, for the love of all things monstrous, please don’t let it be protecting the dimwitted civilians from harm. Scratch that, don’t give me the keys to the creature-infested mansion that supposedly houses the aforementioned dimwitted civilians, for the brainless will falter, and that employer who clearly wishes for my failure will more than likely terminate my contract before dawn. If you still want me, then fine — I’ll take it. But just know that, if this is to be My Night Job for the next few hours, then I cannot guarantee that everything will run smoothly — not tonight, not tomorrow, not ever. Sure, you can give me a chainsaw, but to ask me to save a hundred lost tourists whilst also preventing a decrepit manor from falling into the hands of an elite army of monsters? Eh — you’re pushing it.

On the flip side of the questionable job description and its unorthodox pay structure, My Night Job does actually have some great career benefits for you to claim here—a myriad of usable weapons (sixty, if you take the general household objects into account), dynamic and oftentimes destructive environments, weird and wonderful creature designs, and a tedious yet weirdly humorous script that doesn’t hold back on its punch-drunk moments. It has a lot of these things, so while the process of banishing the hoodlums and protecting the common collective is a bit of a pain in the backside, there are some worthy bonus schemes for those committed to the cause.

If you’re still undecided on My Night Job (it originally launched back in 2016, mind you), then let’s go ahead and bust open the book on its latest revival on Switch. Cancel that job search, folks — you’ve got one here.

Working Overtime

My Night Job revolves around two things: a mansion, which is the centerpiece for an ongoing feud between a faction of brutish beings and careless civilians, and a graveyard shift employee, who has the monumental task of having to enter said mansion during each twilight moon and bring the helpless souls to one of several extraction points before the residence falls to ruin. There are numerous floors to explore, escape points to unearth, makeshift weapons to equip, and an arcade scoring system that allows you to set records and exceed your previous achievements. That’s about the brunt of the game, in a nutshell. It’s something of a rogue-like side-scrolling endeavor with a comedic twist, nothing more, nothing less. And the funny thing is, it works in its favor, despite being a little on the simpler end of the scale.

There isn’t much of a storyline to follow here; in fact, the opening chapter essentially spins the yarn of a new employee’s introduction into the world—a night worker who, for some odd reason that’s completely unknown to us, has to monitor the disturbances in a mansion and locate a squadron of civilians to help them find an evacuation point on the map. After that initial episode and introductory spiel, the game essentially opens up to a slightly more predictable rogue-like affair, in the case that it has you returning to the mansion on each night, and working to earn a higher score than on the previous one by finessing your battle strategy, stringing together more kills, and using more of the environment to accrue a higher rescue toll. Simple, yet satisfying, you could say.

No Tourists Allowed

The core gameplay is relatively easy to follow, as it mostly involves working across a multitude of floors and engaging in close-hand combat with eleven different variations of monsters. As you work through each of these floors, you have two objectives: prevent each room from being destroyed by the flurry of monstrous attacks, and find survivors to bring to one of several helipad extraction points to ensure their safety. The more you begin to progress through these extractions, the more you begin to earn XP and, with that, greater rewards to apply to your final score. And that’s really all there is to the process here: fighting, defending, rescuing, extracting, and earning. It’s a basic concept that doesn’t require a great deal of skill or forward thinking. Well, it requires some skill, but from personal experience, it’s also a little bit of dumb luck and perseverance.

My Night Job isn’t likely to win any awards for having the best presentation or visual palette. I’ll admit, it’s chaotic and it’s cluttered, and it frequently relishes in its absurd design choices without taking structural integrity into account. The point is, there’s a lot going on at once; monsters shroud the screen; the extraction points disguise themselves behind mounds of inanimate objects and endless waves of destruction; and the sheer vibrancy of the world in general is often too overwhelming for comfort. But that’s a part of the charm, I guess: the fact that it doesn’t settle for a single thing, but instead pours into heart and soul into juggling multiple balls at once. Sure, it’s a lot to take in, but the more you begin to come to grips with the absurdity of it all, the more you begin to realize that it minces well with its style.

Verdict

My Night Job is bursting at the seams with a generous donation of retro-like side-scrolling shenanigans and super fast-paced condition-based gameplay elements. It doesn’t boast a complete story (if there even is a fraction of a plot, at that) but where it lacks in the storytelling department, it most certainly makes us for in its rich and engaging ode to classic arcade beat ‘em ups. It’s a comedic romp, if anything, and one that brings a solid amount of depth to the genre with a lot of exaggerated animations and staggeringly funny tidbits. Is it roll-on-the-floor, laugh-out-loud sort of hilarious? Eh — I wouldn’t go that far, but I can see the appeal in its comedic tone.

When all’s said and done, My Night Job isn’t the new kid on the block; it’s actually getting on a bit as far as its dated visuals and somewhat shoddy mechanics go. But that isn’t to say that it isn’t timeless. Oh, it has its downfalls, and it certainly isn’t something that is likely to hold a candle against other, slightly more complex beat ‘em up side-scrolling games of its kind. But, it has a whole lot of heart and adolescent spirit to offer, so while it may be lacking in graphical prowess and technical sophistication, it is an easy game to lose a handful of hours to. And that’s enough, truly.

To cut to the brunt of the conclusion — yes, My Night Job is still worth slugging through even after just shy of a decade since its initial debut. It’s a great addition to the Switch catalog, and one that compliments the JoyCons incredibly well. So, if you are on the prowl for a good old-fashioned arcade beat ‘em up, be sure to give this one a shot.