I received a review copy from the developers
If you’d prefer a video review, have a look here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atfuDj-x0fQ
Do you like Super Meat Boy? How about all those death gauntlets filling up the Mario Maker servers? Do you get a kick out of spending 5 hours on a level -- your right hand reaching for the doritos upon every death and break in the action -- to finally complete it before moving on to the next (which’ll take 6 hours by the way) in a seemingly endless loop of misery for a grand total of a mere, maybe, 5 seconds of satisfaction?
Yeah, me neither.
Which might lead you to believe that this is gonna be a negative review of Blitz Breaker. You’d be wrong. The fact that this game, a really difficult (at least in the last third) 2D platformer, had me glued to my seat, me being a self admitted hater of platformers and all things mario, for 6 hours straight one evening, is why I think it’s a fantastic game.
Blitz Breaker does have its slow moments, but all in all it’s a much faster game than Mario or even Super Meat Boy. And it’s because the developers opted to do away with traditional left and right walking controls in favour of slamming their heads against a wall repeatedly.
I don’t mean that as an analogy of the oftentimes tediousness that is developing video games, but instead literally. The way you traverse the map in Blitz Breaker is exclusively charging in a direction until you hit something; with the odd hop every now and again.
[h1]Presentation[/h1]
This game is very beautiful for what it is. At first it might just seem like a typical retro inspired 2D indie game, but it’s the camera shake whenever you bash into a wall, it’s the extremely easy to miss splashes when you enter or exit the water, it’s the tiny golden pulse of light whenever you collect a coin. All of these things throw Blitz Breaker into modern times, and the beautifully made animations combined with the appropriate thudding sound effects and the surprisingly memorable soundtrack create this nearly flawless presentation that I think makes up 50% of the reason I enjoyed the game so much. I don’t know how big the developer Boncho Games is or exactly who works there, but they have an incredible eye and ear for production design. One detail I particularly enjoyed was the different animations that some of the playable characters have for when you’re just falling. I will say that I don’t think that the game gains anything in particular by cutting off the resolution into the small window, and maybe the levels could have had a bit more colour variety in them, but those are both nitpicks; you soon forget that you are playing on a smaller screen, and the lack of environmental variety can be explained away by the location you are supposed to be in story-wise.
[h1]Mechanics[/h1]
The mechanics are the other half of what makes the game great. The controls are nice and tight and work well with both controller and keyboard though I will say that, while this can be fixed by simply using the d-pad, the analog stick could be frustrating to use here. The thing that I think really makes this a fun game to play from a strictly gameplay point of view though, is that it’s satisfying to zip around a level like you can in Blitz Breaker; narrowly avoiding deadly sawblades and missiles with pure speed and response time. This is definitely possible in other platformers but, outside of optional objectives like a reward for being quick in Super Meat Boy, it’s very rarely required that you act fast. In Blitz Breaker there are many situations where if you don’t move you will simply fall onto some spikes. That combined with the game always introducing new kinds of level layouts, bosses and hazards means the game stays interesting. Ultimately though, if I had to pinpoint what I enjoyed about this game as opposed to something similar like Super Meat Boy, it’d all come down to the controls. I often find in platformers that the controls just feel too floaty, or the way my character moves is too slow, and that’s the case with Mario. In this game everything just feels so fast and responsive, and so it was easy for me to get into.
I’ve really been sucking the game off so far, but it’s time for me to talk about some of the weaker elements of the mechanics. Intrinsically, the way the game works is great, but every now and again I’d encounter a level that just felt like I was running into a wall (no pun intended) over and over again in the hopes that it would eventually break. The best example of this is a particular level half-way through the game called “precision” that is designed around the idea of fitting through tiny little spaces without touching the spikes. It took me about 30 minutes to beat it which is not the longest time I spent on a level in this game, but it stands out to me because I didn’t really feel like I was getting better at the level, or that I had to apply any kind of technique, and so when I beat it I felt relieved rather than satisfied. In my eyes the ultimate platformer would be like a puzzle game; where each level is a new problem that you have to solve by exploring different strategies and ways of approaching it.
[h1]Story[/h1]
There isn’t really anything to the story. There’s only one cutscene for the game right at the end, and even then I didn’t really understand exactly what the main character was trying to achieve the whole time. It wasn’t bad and it didn’t take away from the experience by being absent, but there’s also no reason why a game like this can’t have a compelling or funny story that’s being told through narration, cutscenes between bosses, or environmental tells. That’s not a negative, necessarily; if you’re interested in the gameplay then this won’t be an issue, but I thought I’d acknowledge that the game could have been more in this area, and definitely gave itself a limiting factor to the kind of people it might appeal to, its distinctiveness from other platformers, and ultimately its memorability. I’d argue that a lot of what made a game like Super Meat Boy so popular was the ridiculous theme and the comedy. That said, I’ll take a nonexistent story over an intrusively bad story.
[h1]Verdict[/h1]
Guys, here’s the real kicker. This game is only $3 and I got 15 hours out of it; 15 hours of high quality content. This makes it, in my opinion, an absolute must buy for any fan of platformers, and a tentative recommendation, even, to haters of platformers. If the reason you can’t stand platformers is because of their slow pace, then this is definitely your antidote. And for $3? Everyone should try this game, frankly, it’s dirt cheap so you’re unlikely to have buyer’s regret, and even then, provided you’re going to play it, I don’t believe that, to most people, this game will be a bad investment for them -- and even if you don’t play it you’re only out $3! Seriously, go buy this game (it sounds like I work for them, but for real, this is my genuine feelings on the game).
<h1>Score</h1>
Presentation: 9
Mechanics: 8
Story: 5
Price to content Ratio: 10
Personal Enjoyment: 9
Final: 8.2/10
I’m awarding Blitz Breaker an 8.2 out of 10. The presentation was phenomenal with extremely minor complaints; the Mechanics had a few issues here and there, but were intrinsically sound. The story just didn’t exist, and so it could have been more; the real knockout here, in my opinion, is the price to quality ratio -- this game could have easily sat at $10 dollars, maybe a little more and still gotten a recommendation from me, but this is incredible. And I got 15 hours out of this game collecting all the little optional stuff; getting all the stars; everything! On top of everything else I really just purely enjoyed this game.
