Skellboy Refractured

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHlfbpvTlgE A cute 2.5D hack n slash adventure game where you play as Skippy the skeleton and is set out the save the kingdom by going on an adventure, defeating undead enemies and bosses. It is a family friendly game with the cartoony artstyle and visuals. Though this is part of the highlight of the game as the characters and the world looks cute and great with the pixel style. The world is fun to explore with a lot of enemies to fight and customisation as you can change how you look by changing into the enemy or friends. For example, defeating a zombie, you can replace your skeleton skull with the zombie head. Combat is decent with a good range of weapons whether it be using melee, ranged or magic, it is possible to quickly interchange what is preferred to be used. Music is also neat and fun to listen to with the adventurous chiptune audio and silly sound effects which adds to the charm and makes you sort of feel like you're playing some old school game. There is a co op mode where you can play with another person either locally or through remote play which would be quite entertaining as you venture out together. Overall it is quite a neat and cute game with a great adventure to explore, whether it be by yourself or with a friend or family member.

after 19.1 hours (as of right now) played in the game, I beat the game, beat the game+ and have about 95% of all unlocks. The game is amazing for me and my girlfriend. We spent hours exploring the world, collecting items, and even had fun in the randomly generated dungeons. Over all I Highly recommend this game to anybody who wants an interesting story, neat mechanics, and enough content as of right now to keep you invested for many many hours collecting them all.

I bought it because of cute graphics but immediately regret it after playing for 1 hour. First of all, this game is glitch fest. There is a section in the sewers where you have to suck up ghosts to retrieve your body parts but the game glitches and doesn't let you use that move. The solution, quit and restart the game, after that it worked. Also, in the later sections you have to fight with orcs with bombs. I killed all of them, but the door didn't open. I wandered around and decide to quit and reload. Guess what; the door is open now. In just 2 hours I encountered 2 glitches that prevented me from progressing further. Also, the game throws you in to semi open world and wants you to progress without telling you what to know. There is no journal to track progress, no objective markers or arrows to guide you. You can look at the map at certain places but that only shows you the map, so it is useless. After all this bullsh*t I decided to stop playing and uninstalled it.

First of all: This game is [b] FUN [/b] I played for almost 95 hrs, if words aren't enough for you. Skellboy is a nice short game with a interesting story, LOTS of puns and good difficulty balance. (Now there's also the relax function that make it even more enjoyable for those who just want to see the story). Music is good, the art is good, the devs worked hard to fix all those nasty bugs that popped up just like zombies do in the toxic dungeons in the submarine area... I don't know what to say other than: Play this game, it's worth it.

This is tough to give a bad review to, but it makes too many cardinal sins IMHO. Fun to start, cute, funny if not slightly corny and the combat was simple but had promise. Things start to go south when you realize there is no map and the world rotates as you travel, making it hard to keep orientated and the only map is are static ones as posters. The camera angles get REALLY bad in places and get you killed, not to mention an entire sequence of walking across beams at odd angles with other beams blocking your view which is maddening. Then the boss battles ... SIGH. First the bosses don't have a health bar (which I find ridiculous in ANY game ... it wouldn't be bad in games that visually show the damage, but this does not) so you have no idea how close you were when you died. That is compounded by the MAJOR sin of you now have to travel back for a minute and then listen to monologue all over again. That was the last straw for me and the missus.

Played the demo, felt the game had potential, picked it up. Spent the best part of 4 hours not entirely sure where exactly I'm supposed to be going at any given moment (and no clear idea which way I'd have to go to get there when I did). Also main character's slow movement makes exploration feel like a chore rather than fun. Combat is way too boring and repetitive considering how many enemies the game throws at you and the variety of weapons does very little to make it more interesting. The mix-and-match body parts system is [i]fine[/i] but typically just results in sticking with the same parts for as long as possible until you're forced to swap. Feel like it would benefit [b]hugely[/b] from: - A map in the pause menu - Some sort of questlog/current objective reminder - Fewer enemies in some areas, it quickly becomes a chore grinding through enemies (especially if you die and have to fight them all a [i]second[/i] time)

This game is a hidden gem. Everything is charming and the story, art, and music all work together to support the fantasy adventure parody theme its going for. All the areas are well designed and theres also a lot of really great boss fights. Also getting abilities from switching body parts was a really good mechanic. It does a great job at everything its trying to do. The ending song was cringe though.

A Simple game that stays entertaining without boring filler.

I like how so many of these positive reviews are free/less than 1 hour played and they write a novel of a review on how good the game is. Idea of the game is okay i guess, doesn't seem that interesting and got bored fast.

Skellboy is one of these little indie gems: easy to miss, but incredibly rewarding to all of those who actually engage with it, to the point of "Oh god, how could ANYBODY have missed this?"! When I played it first on the Switch, some time ago, I was instantly charmed by the strict adherence to this incredibly cute art style and the fitting thematic music. (I just LOVE how these little guys move and jump and explode!) It is not just "retro aesthetic #625", but instead what seems to be a very conscious choice connecting the blocky main character and their blocky world to an appropriate gaming philosophy. And yes, in this regard it is retro! This also applies to the core mechanism of relieving enemies of their body parts, assembling your own little weapon-wielding Skellboy in the process. And finally, the plot itself is very much reminiscient of all these classic games out there, at least in the beginning. And for me personally, the retro part was not exclusively a positive: between certain difficulty spikes and (missing) functionalities, I did have my gripes with Skellboy. Even though the charm easily overpowers any griping, the gameplay details were not completely my cup of tea ... But now, coming back a few years later and looking at the changelogs? I'm happy (and a bit flabbergasted!) to report that practically ALL of these gripes have been approved upon. I'm even a bit jealous at the people who can experience the game like this for the first time?! It would have been easy for the developers to rest on their bony laurels, but Skellboy today is an impressive testimony of devotion to a project. That being said, I don't want to give the impression that the game was ever "just another lazy retro thing": the abilities you get through body parts are not always what you expect ("Number X will surprise you!"), the gameplay and level design are crazy varied for such a little game and even the writing balances a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of witty puns without being too obnoxious and smug in its own humour. The word "charming" might be overused in game reviews, but if it fits, it fits. Conclusion: If Skellboy was made by an already well-known studio, at a more opportune moment in gaming history or with more publicity money, it could have been one of these indie hypes literally all of your Steam friends have played. But as it stands, it seems to stay a hidden gem that you should absolutely – let me repeat this – NOT miss out on!