Welp, this game sure did happen.

• Shu
  

  2 hours playtime

  19 of 42 achievements

This is a platformer. You have five lives to get from one checkpoint to the next, with your lives being restocked at each checkpoint. At certain points in each world, you’ll get two NPCs following you, each one giving you a different ability (e.g. double-jump, ground pound, etc.) until the NPCs go away at the end of the world. Also, for the last one or two levels of each world, you’re being chased by a wall of death; not only does it seemingly move at different speeds for different levels (and maybe even different speeds for the same level), and not only does the level not autoscroll so you don’t know how far behind it is or how fast you need to go, but the wall can defy its speed just to lean forward and open its mouth and be scary, even if you’re not that close to being caught by it. Oh, and if you do get killed by the wall, it starts at a predetermined distance from the last checkpoint even if it was much closer when you made it to said checkpoint, so there might be points where you have to die (at least if you get one of the collectibles).

Each level has six main collectibles, and while they aren’t exactly in your way, they aren’t too hard to miss, either. If you do miss one, chances are it’s because you went the “wrong” way on an obvious split path rather than any clever level design. The game also has achievements for collecting enough of the yellow butterflies in each level (think coins from Mario), though the game isn’t above putting butterflies on one path and a main collectible on the other path during a chase segment, adding artificial replayability since it’s impossible to get both on one run. There are also stone tablets hidden throughout the levels (usually one per level), and the path to these items are always obscured by foreground objects, sometimes without anything sticking out to indicate anything being there.

Beyond that, there really isn’t much to this game. The level design is extremely flat, empty, and basic (even going into the post-game), and if you do get killed, it’s usually because the game does something cheap, like the same-model statues falling when you’re at different distances from them, or the horizontally-moving thorn bush moving into the screen too quickly, or just general hazards not standing out from the scenery. At least horizontal movement is responsive, even in midair (push forward = move forward; let go of forward = stop moving forward), but holding the “float down” button sends you forward automatically (so you have to push left and right to fall relatively straight) and the power that lets you be pushed by updrafts also has momentum, meaning you can let go half-way up the room and still run into the spikes.

So yeah, I wouldn’t recommend it. Like, it’s better than Famicom-exclusive shovelware titles like Tadaima Shugyou Chuu, but even if you’re looking for an easy platformer, the cheap hits will dampen your experience.