Very good hardcore platformer with nice varied visuals and great techno music.
There are 4 worlds to explore, each world is made up of 15 levels for a total of 60 levels. Each world has a different aesthetic and completely different sets of obstacles giving every world a very different feel. The first few levels of each world are very easy, they are basically there to show you how the traps/level hazards work in that stage and then after a few training levels in that world the real challenges begin.
The difficulty curve in this game is great, it is a hard game and you will die a decent amount, but it is not frustrating. Every time you die it is your fault and because of instant respawns you will jump right back into action and learn from your mistakes. This game did a great job of always making me feel like I would beat the level on my next try which really keeps you in the action. Many levels also offer a degree of flexibility in how you handle them and often just changing your approach to a level can make it much easier.
Controls are fast, when you first play them you will probably think they are too fast, but you will get the hang of them. Controls are simple, you can walk (very quickly) left to right and you have a jump button, tapping jump produces short jumps and holding it produces long jumps. You also have a mid-air dash move that lets you cover a lot of ground quickly and you can cling to walls and bounce up them/back and forth between them. It is all pretty standard fare but it works well here.
A few complaints:
1) The jump button is mapped to Y on the xbox pad by default, very weird, make sure you change it before the game starts.
2) The game does not work with the control pad, this is a pretty huge deal. I use a logitech controller with a button that turns the stick into the dpad and vice versa but if you are playing with an xbox controller you will be forced to use the stick. Personally, this would have made the game unplayable for me, and it is definitely something the devs need to fix, precision games like this are made to be played with a dpad.
3) No mid level checkpoints, granted most levels are short and don't really need them, but some levels drag on a bit and a mid level checkpoint would have been nice, especially on the final level.
4) The final level is disproportionately difficult compared to the rest of the game. Yes, I know its the final level, but for a game with such a nice difficulty curve there is simply no reason for the last level to be that much harder than the rest of the game. I think up to the final level I died a total of around 150 times, on the final level I died around 80 times, that tells you something is off. I almost quit the game but decided to stick it out and was rewarded with a completely crap ending, not that a game like this really has a story but it still felt like an f you.
Overall, techno boy is a really fun platformer and if you are into this genre I can't imagine you not enjoying it.
