NoRoY
Experience a different kind of horror, where every mistake has a big price. 2d action platformer with a horror twist, 50 handcrafted levels with lots of surprises, and very challenging.
Read More: Best 2D Platformer Singleplayer Games.
DARK AROUND YOU
Not a bad game, with nice graphics and pleasant gameplay. Played for a couple of hours and it was worth it.
– Real player with 2.8 hrs in game
Read More: Best 2D Platformer Adventure Games.
Dark Around You is yet another 2D retro pixel platformer polluting the Steam marketplace. This one has a telekinesis gimmick where you can drag things around with the mouse pointer to help you do the platforming.
While this was built in Unity, it doesn’t seem like an asset flip as there’s a bespoke story and some pretty uniquely done mechanics and visuals. Kudos to the developer for that.
They chose to use obsolete retro pixel “art” as a substitute for contemporary PC graphics. It’s unclear if this is due to lack of budget or talent, regardless, the overall visual quality of the game is extremely low as a result. Resolution and controls are locked. There’s a really unpleasant screen filter/effect that makes the camera sway as you move around, it made me feel a bit queasy, and I couldn’t see any way to turn that off. These flaws push this game far below minimum acceptable standards for PC.
– Real player with 0.1 hrs in game
The Last Chimera
First things first, heed the content warning.
Not sure why the captives had to be chained up, the plot implies everyone is a willing participant.
Beatable in four hours. Interesting monster designs. A fair bit of thought has been put into this game.
Combat suffers from being JRPG random encounters + level grind. Would have been fun if you had to think a bit more about which splits you bring with you and what they’re geared with for each fight (in fairness, you probably do on Hard but it’s a bit hard to tell what’s going on).
– Real player with 4.6 hrs in game
Read More: Best 2D Platformer RPG Games.
World of One
I reviewed this for Two Credits. You can find the full review, the score I gave it, and some cool screenshots from my time playing here: http://twocredits.co/review/world-of-one/
Summary:
When World of One sticks to puzzles and dealing with enemies by avoiding them, a bright light begins to shine in its dark world. Puzzles are varied and many have multiple solutions. They are also surprisingly nuanced; simply solving some of them incorrectly will solve them, but it will also lead to your death. The experience falls apart a bit when it begins to focus on combat, but it should be noted that, despite that fact, I played through practically the entire game in one sitting, which took around seven hours, a testament to the fact that the game was still enjoyable long after the focus had shifted slightly. It’s a game that I wish had focused more on its puzzles, bringing back some of its mechanics in new and interesting ways more often, but one that still manages to remain interesting and present challenging puzzles throughout despite the fact that it does not.
– Real player with 6.9 hrs in game
World of One is a dark fantasy puzzle-platformer that reminds me Tim Burton’s work. Obviously, any black/white platformer gets compared to Limbo which really isn’t a good comparison beyond surface level features. It is not a bad game but I feel like toward the second half there is more frustration than fun (mostly do to poor hit boxes, combat, and time-consuming respawns) While I feel that game could be sufficient with few updates I was forcing myself to enjoy it.
The first Act focused primarily on puzzles, story, and platforming which was very enjoyable. I only died few times and felt like I was playing a casual, sinister looking puzzle game. Then it starts snowballing downhill almost to where I considered refunding it. In next few Acts, generic combat becomes a big part of the experience. Game has a lot of insta-death so you constantly replaying 2-4 minutes sections between checkpoints. I died at least 100 times to just poor visual hit boxes. The combat system gets really boring and just feels like a massive waste of time when you die in an unfair way.
– Real player with 5.8 hrs in game
春と修羅｜Haru to Shura
I felt that I should review this game because I can find very little online about it, and thought it deserved a little more recognition. I will fully admit that I heard about and was interested in this game because of Studio Pixel’s involvement. However, I was pleasantly surprised to see that it had the same graphical charm and polish we saw in Cave Story and Kero Blaster, but has an identity of its own. Gameplay takes a backseat here to story, and it works very well with the medium. It felt similar to a visual novel with the heavy amounts of dialogue, but it knows when to give the player a break and move around. The game is about three hours long and I enjoyed it the whole way through. I do not wish to get into spoiler territory but I suggest playing this game blind as it gives one a lot to ponder.
– Real player with 7.4 hrs in game
As a fan of Studio Pixel’s other works, this was a game that I was excited for in the months leading up to its sequel. Getting to play it, a lot of things stayed true to the quality of Studio Pixel’s other games. The pixel art and OST are both phenomenal, and the game is able to convey complex thoughts with minimalistic output. That said, this game also has some flaws that definitely were noticeable and that can impact your enjoyment of the game.
Note that as of the time of writing this review I have only gotten one ending, which appears to have been the true / good ending to the game.
– Real player with 4.8 hrs in game
Lost EVE
Lost EVE is a dark, atmospheric puzzle-platformer, the story of which unfolds in a post-apocalyptic future about 3 thousand years after a nuclear war.
With the departure of the dryad on the Moon, the power of the magical obelisks that supported life dries up and the forest gradually fades.
The forest has changed a lot, now it is ruled by strange semi-biological, semi-mechanical creatures.
A magical and very unfriendly world is waiting for you. The main character becomes involved in a spinning carousel of events, where he remains until the end of the story.
Moki
I bought this game after finishing Another Warfare. The game is neither hard, nor easy. That is a really good thing for a platformer. I, personally, enjoyed, but the words made me feel like that I was trapped in a body that is under influence of people who are insulting him. And in the end we are, finally, able to set ourselves free. I kinda felt happy when I finished the game. But it could be much longer.
I think a level counter should be in game. Because if you don’t check your achievements, you can’t learn which level you are playing. The game is short, but that should have been added in the first place.
– Real player with 0.6 hrs in game
I really liked the concept of the game. I wanted to play more stages. With intriguing atmosphere and pleasant music, it is an easy game to learn and difficult to master. The aesthetics of the game evolves as the stage progresses, the experience was short but recommended.
– Real player with 0.4 hrs in game
a Story of Merchant
a Story of Merchant is an abandoned early access 2D retro pixel platformer that was made by copy+pasting a Unity Asset Store template for making a 2D retro platformer game, then cramming in a bunch of low quality retro pixel 2D “art” (used typically because the developers lack the budget/talent to do any better).
The result, unsurprisingly, is a very poor quality 2D platformer. The controls don’t work properly. It looks bad. The nicest thing I can say about this is that it displays properly in full screen.
– Real player with 0.1 hrs in game
Demonicute
There is no plot or deep meaning here.
There is only you and the mechanisms that want to destroy you.
Beware of red things.
Good luck.
Emberlight
It’s one of those games that you think would be easy, but it’s not. 10/10.
– Real player with 1.4 hrs in game
What we have here is an indie platformer where you can go left to right, jumping on enemies heads. There isn’t anything offensive here but also nothing that elevates it above 10,000 other indie platformers on Steam.
– Real player with 0.4 hrs in game