Originally a Humble Original game in the May 2016 Humble Monthly, this game eventually ended up on steam. And with Humble failing to let me know it was added, a backlog that should last me a couple of years, and a lack of HDD space causing me to backup the original download over to an external drive, I had forgotten all about this one.

Retro style platforming with CRT emulation is really overdone now and was so even when it was released. But unlike a lot of others this one manages to be fun and avoid being pretentious.

There's two factions in the game to align with, and you select one shortly after playing. As soon as you make your selection the other does not want much if anything to do with you. Due to the fact that the Gunmetal Vanguard is the first faction you come across you'll find that the Seekers of Arcadia have a much much lower recruitment rate over on the achievement page.

If you spend time talking to NPCs this rivalry is mentioned. But is easy to forget and miss until the second playthrough as it is not obvious when you first meet the Seekers that you can't join them.

The game is a basic hero's journey. Your (dead) mother is a war hero. Your sister is off to battle. And grandpa lets you know of a powerful sword in the basement. One with great personal history and meaning to you. A sword which you will sell off a few screens later when you get to the weapon shop and find something better.

Overall the world is not that interesting to really delve into the lore. It's there if you want a few snippets but it feels hollow. It hints as if there is a mini-quest system in place, but there isn't any to be found.

This is an extension of NPC feedback. Before you can begin the adventure you are told by your sister to talk to grandpa first. She will not let you leave if you try to walk out of the house. Or! You can talk to you sis, get her to leave, then run to the basement to get the sword and exit the house. Without saying a word to Grandpa.

Later on you find two doors, with a lanky yellow elf hiding in the left room. He says that he hid stuff in the other room and needs help. You can enter that room and kill the monsters, take or leave the loot and return to him. He tells you he needs help as he hid something in the other room. I checked and checked for secret switches, items, and doors. Nothing!

It may sound like a petty small thing, but it is little things like this that really help sell the game world to people. Growing up on 8-bit games I know there was not a lot of mini quests built like this back then. But the few times it did was appreciated. Plus, in 2017 we can expect a little bit more while keeping the aesthetic majority.

As to the rest of the game? It is pretty much what you expect from a competent platformer game. You don't slide around the map as it were ice/glass, and it does not feel like you stop on a pinpoint. Jumping has a little bit of precision on platforms, but you can easily grab ladders while jumping on to them.

Basically it did it right. It is odd in a way as we've seen so many sloppy attempts at this genre that when one does get it right and you don't immediately notice it... You take notice of that fact.

Enemy hitbox detection is also fair. There's a tiny amount of give if you are near one, and you have a few seconds of invulnerability when you get hit. Your attacks feel like they connect as most enemies will freeze and flash letting you know you are doing damage allowing you to kill them easily.

Bosses are tougher, but not maddeningly so. While I was killed on the first attempt with the ones I encountered, their patterns are fairly easy to learn and they don't insta-kill you.

However it is possible to pick up enough ammo for a secondary attack and kill them while they are at the edge of the screen with little challenge. Just watch out for any minor monsters they spawn.

To make killing easier you can buy weapons with different attack rates, range, and damage. Boosts allow you to attack in different directions, or change jump height. And bombs and ammo for secondary attacks.

The credits required for these items drop on enemy deaths or by extinguishing touches. Making it possible to farm on some parts of a level where monsters spawn in order to equip yourself for the final fight of the level.

I had fun with this one. It does more right than it does wrong and there's enough variety in it to try out different ways of completing the game. Plus speed runs, if you are in to that kind of nonsense.

Worth a look if you like the genre.

Game Acquisition: Humble Monthly (May 2016).
Platform Used: Steam
Tweet Threads: 1 - 15 January 2017
PC Used: Scorptec Venom 2009 MK2

OS: Windows XP SP2 or newer
Processor: 1.2 GHz or faster
Memory: 128 MB RAM
Graphics: GeForce 8 series or equivalent
DirectX: Version 9.0c
Storage: 100 MB available space