Retro Replay Review

Gameplay

The first few minutes are easy to understand: choose Sooty or Sweep and start collecting the bones left around the house. The catch is that creepy-crawlies occupy the rooms, so your objective is never just about reaching an item. You need to get around enemies safely, find the keys that open doors, and keep pushing toward a fully cleared house.

Sooty’s wand and Sweep’s water pistol sound like they should create sharply different routes through the game, but both serve the same core purpose: they stun bugs for a few seconds. That makes the choice feel more like choosing your favourite character than choosing a play style. Still, the stun window gives the action a useful little rhythm. Fire, slip past, grab what you need, and do not waste time lingering where an enemy can recover in your path.

The item system is where the game earns its puzzle-elements label. Sticky buns can draw bugs away, keys open up new doors, and magic boxes or water bottles restore the chosen character’s ammunition. That gives you more to think about than jumping past obstacles, although it can also frustrate if you arrive at a dangerous stretch without enough wand charge or water. The house-clearing loop is modest, but it has enough moving parts to reward cautious play rather than a careless sprint.

Two-player competition is the most spirited variation. Instead of merely sharing the same bone hunt, Sooty and Sweep can steal each other’s bones and throw custard pies while chasing the higher score. It is a meaner, sillier mode than the main game, and that suits the characters. If you have someone alongside you, it is likely the mode that will bring the biggest laughs.

Graphics

The game uses a side-view, flip-screen layout built around rooms in Matthew’s house. Sooty and Sweep are easy to distinguish through their signature wand and water pistol, while the bugs, bones, keys, buns, and refills make each room’s immediate priorities clear.

Story

The setup is appropriately small-scale: Matthew leaves Sooty in charge, Sweep has scattered old bones everywhere, and an open garden door lets bugs into the house. It is not trying to build a grand adventure. It gives the collecting objective a clean, kid-friendly excuse and gets out of the way.

That domestic mess fits Sooty & Sweep better than a forced villain or elaborate rescue plot would have. A house full of misplaced bones and bothersome crawlies is exactly the kind of gentle chaos you expect from this pair, and the different tools let each character contribute without changing the basic mission.

The competitive mode also captures the more playful side of the premise. Snatching bones from the other character and flinging custard pies turns the tidy-up job into a squabble, which is a more memorable use of the licence than simply placing familiar names on a standard platform game.

Overall Experience

Sooty & Sweep works best as a light, family-friendly action game with a little more planning than its premise initially suggests. Clearing rooms, managing refills, using buns to influence bugs, and unlocking doors gives the central bone hunt a welcome sense of purpose. It is not deep, but it does ask you to pay attention.

The main limitation is also its defining simplicity. Since both character weapons only stun enemies, Sooty and Sweep do not meaningfully change the solo experience. If you want a platformer with radically different character abilities or a more elaborate progression system, this will feel slight. Its pleasures are more immediate: getting through a troublesome room cleanly and seeing your collection grow.

Give it a chance if you enjoy old-school licensed games that turn a familiar children’s property into a straightforward challenge, especially if you can make use of the competitive two-player option. Solo, it is a tidy little scavenger hunt with occasional tactical wrinkles; with a second person, the bone stealing and custard-pie antics give it considerably more personality.

Retro Replay Score

6.4/10