To start: I used to add a header to these reviews, but since it often made the reviews too long to submit, I've opted to leave it on my Backloggery page. Shouldn't happen here, but I've always been one for both consistency and efficiency.
Gameplay: Krunch is one of those games which you can pretty much sum up all of the gameplay in a serntence. It's a game where you have full vertical and horizontal control of a sphere in which your objective is to get to the goal without dying. You also have a run button, but this should only be used sparingly or whenever you are confident in your current health, since "running" consumes HP. After a set point of HP loss, you can't run anymore, so you need to use it intelligently.
It's also rather difficult to talk about the levels without an initial comparison to Super Meat Boy, since the levels are pretty challenging and pretty short. While the game doesn't immediately show you initial times after you beat the levels, they are visible once you go to the level select screen, so it's not too much of a hassle. Also within these stages are Krebs, or what are basically coins that you can collect for additional score. They aren't necessary and are only there for the challenge, but I can appreciate it nonetheless. Regarding the challenge of the levels and also comparing it to Super Meat Boy, the game starts off at roughly Light World Hospital and ends up about halfway through Light World Hell. So basically, the game is challenging, but never to the point where you'll want to stop playing. Much like Super Meat Boy, there are plenty of obstacles within the four worlds and are generally used pretty creatively without ever really feeling cheap.
One of the things that a reviewer complained about in this game is the fact that once you run into a wall, you bounce off of it. I don't have a problem with that, as it encourages precision gameplay over reflexes. That's not to say that reflexes aren't useful, but the game does force you to play a little more carefully than you may expect. The only thing that I can kinda complain about is that the hitboxes sometimes felt a little finicky, specifically with the bombs. Other than that, pretty much every death in this game will be your fault. Just the way it should be.
Overall, I can see a lot of both replay value and speedrunning potential for this game. Even for a normal person, it's a nice time killer. $10 may be a bit much given the fact that it can be beaten in an hour and a half, and I do somewhat agree (I picked this up in a Humble Bundle a while back), but on sale for something like $5 and I'd definitely say this game is worth the asking price. 8/10.
Story: There really isn't much here, but the comic you do get with the Digital Collector's Edition is quite nice. Not worth reviewing.
Graphics: A lot of effort has been put into this game, and it shows. The graphics style is basically if you take a Gameboy game and apply different color filters to it. The pixel art is great and has a great deal of detail, the boss design is great, and the game just looks all around great. In fact, my only gripe is that level names can be hard to read at times. That's really it. As far as the technical things go, the game launches in a 1280x720 splash screen and then fullsizes to your native resolution. You can play this game in windowed mode if you're into that sort of thing simply by pausing and pushing Y on your 360 controller (don't know the corresponding keyboard command, although I'd imagine Alt-Enter would work just fine). Overall, there was a lot of work put into the graphics for this game, and it's one of those games that just looks good irrespective of the visual style. 5/5.
Sound: Pretty much just music here, and I've gotta say that the music is pretty rad. A couple of standout tracks are the Boiler track (Ignition) and the last track of the soundtrack (ESCAPE). I'd give these a listen on Youtube beforehand to decide whether or not you'd be interested in giving the five dollars extra for it. I find it hard to say, since I once again got it in a Humble Bundle. However, irrespective of what version you get, the soundtrack is pretty good with more than a few pretty memorable tracks out of the bunch of 11. 4/5.
Overall scores are: 8/0/5/4; cumulative score of 8.5/10. A pretty rad game overall, although the price may be a bit steep for you. Just use your discretion, folks.
