Project: Gemini

I was thankful that, although there's no settings or even an informational panel for controls, the game still allowed me to play both characters with the connected controller and keyboard respectively. As I began to do so, I found fun in the awkward rhythm of controlling them simultaneously, before my play was ended by an unspecified crash. After that I decided to make use of the charitable "Teleport to Boss" button; if I was able to handle that challenge by my lonesome, playing the rest of the game would then seem to be a tedious and ultimately comparable experience. The final stage of the boss required a bit of luck and a mad dash before the spinning lasers caught up with the character I couldn't be bothered to move out of the way, in favor of winning the fight. Unfortunately, once I did win, the game crashed again, and I then resorted to the "Win Game Immediately" button. The game is a Nerve beater with a signature helper element that defines the co-operative scope; each character's abilities effectively lead to specific combat advantages for the other. A pair of characters that can swap onto the same control scheme seems achievable, or perhaps even a keyboard scheme that controls both semi-simultaneously, which is effectively what I attempted with my left thumb on Gutz' jump and the rest on Cricket's movement. The Ice Climbers' fate in Smash Bros. Melee is an unfortunate consequence of competitive play. Conceptually it's an interesting character, yet it doesn't actually acquire anything unique through that concept, except for having an "after-image" for all of your attacks, which has led to the infamous competitive stance "wobbling," where the climbers grab and toss the opponent to each other in an infinite loop, or at least until they have no chance of surviving. Sonic Heroes approaches a similar consequence from the opposite direction; by having each character nearly exclusive to various circumstances of level design, none of them feel especially unique at all, especially when the gimmicks are reused for each of the four teams of three. The elements here could make for a great evolution of these games, provided they were intentionally combined in this way. Project: Gemini gets a B for Boundaries with Bots.