Burrito Bison: Launcha Libre review

Developer: Kongregate

Price: Free
Version: 1.31
App Reviewed on: iPad Air 2

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Burrito Bison: Launcha Libre is a wacky little arcade game from Kongregate where players launch luchadors from a wrestling ring to take out evil candy enemies and their gummy bear minions. It's a totally bonkers concept for sure, but this free-to-play game combines a lot of great concepts and progression systems together to make it a super fun and unique experience.

Angry joyride

If you think Burrito Bison sounds a bit like Angry Birds, you'd be correct. At the beginning of every round, you pull back on the screen to determine the power and trajectory of your wrestler before releasing to watch them pummel their enemies.

What might not be quite as obvious is that–after you've launched your wrestler–Burrito Bison then sort of becomes an endless runner like Jetpack Joyride. Your initial hit on your opponent in the ring provides your wrestler momentum to then fly through levels filled with gummy bears that you have to bounce on to maintain momentum. The goal of the game is to get as far as possible before losing all speed.

Welcome to the slam

Once you're flying high through the air, you still have some control over your wrestler. You can tap the screen to activate a special ability, which is earned over time from hitting certain amounts of enemies.

The further you get into Burrito Bison, you'll come across special enemies that can either speed you up or slow you down, so there's quite a bit of active strategy when it comes to activating your abilities at the right time.

Get pumped up

When you first start out in Burrito Bison, your options are pretty limited and you can only make it so far in a level without a good amount of luck. Between rounds you collect coins though, and these can be spent to unlock new items, wrestlers, and enemies as well as improve your existing stats to help you reach a further distance.

It's really this progression system that makes Burrito Bison fun to play over long stretches of time. There's so much to unlock that you always have a goal, and a lot of these unlocks can fundamentally change your strategies.

The best part about this whole progression system is that it also seems remarkably fair to free-to-play players. There are some collectibles–like piñatas–that can be unlocked by watching an ad, and there's always the ability to pay to unlock things faster, but the pace of unlocking things for free players doesn't seem completely unreasonable and doesn't force players to look at ads or prevent them from playing to their hearts' content.

The bottom line

Burrito Bison: Launcha Libre is a simply delightful game. It's got a colorful art style, charming presentation, a unique gameplay system, and compelling set of unlocks that draw you back to the game over and over again.