Standard Platforming In A Stylish Shell

The 2D platformer is one of the oldest genres in video games. Even after more than 30 years, we still love running and jumping across uneven platforms and avoiding deadly obstacles. Bishop Games adds a new dimension to this established formula with Light Fall, allowing you to create platforms while jumping. Unfortunately, this cool concept is more promising in theory than in practice, and this unorthodox premise plays like an average platformer.

As a tiny, mute silhouette, you clamber over the imaginary world of Numbra – a series of craggy fields and bottomless pits. Using the power of a brick called the Shadow Core, you produce floating platforms. This power is constrained by the fact that you can only produce four blocks before having to set foot on normal ground again. Creating new platforms while you jump is a fun idea. Sadly, Light Fall doesn’t capitalize on its concept, and most levels feel like well-trod platforming challenges with bigger gaps to compensate for your Shadow Core ability. During the adventure, you wall jump up vertical shafts, launch off collapsing platforms, and avoid spinning deathtraps. I enjoyed navigating some of these obstacles, but the entire game feels too familiar.

The Shadow Core has a few additional abilities. One application lets you create blocks that float in front of you like a shield. Another skill allows you to freely move and rotate a block across the screen, which comes in handy for solving Light Fall’s few puzzles. I got a kick out of using a block like a water wheel to propel myself across a lake, but I only used that Shadow Core skill a handful of times throughout the entire game, and most Shadow Core abilities feel sorely underutilized, especially considering you have these skills from the beginning of the game.

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Light Fall’s lack of gameplay variety means you spend most of your time running and jumping. Fortunately, your little sprite has a decent run speed, and controlling him in mid-air feels good even with the Switch’s tiny buttons. Most platforms have a nice stickiness, so I never fell off any of my created blocks, even when I was in a full sprint. Unfortunately, this stickiness is a double-edged sword, and trying to slide down walls is a buzzkill when you’re in a hurry. During some of the more challenging platforming sequences, I died several times because I got caught up on a wall. At other times, Bishop Games had trouble designing challenges around its own mechanics; I avoided a couple platforming sequences altogether by using my platforms to jump over half a level.

A few scattered collectibles encourage players to double back to learn more of the world’s lore, but the world of Numbra isn’t interesting enough, and those rewards aren’t tantalizing enough to encourage this kind of Easter egg hunt.

Light Fall draws you in with its stylistic visuals and the promise of a new twist on a classic formula. Creating your own platforms is fun, but Bishop Games didn’t develop this gimmick into a meaningful series of mechanics. As it stands, Light Fall is a handful of interesting ideas that are missing the elements they need to really shine.

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A Lukewarm Cup Of Tea

Games have a hard time being funny, because they sort of have to play it straight. Although good writing and editing can make a game funny in the traditional sense, the “joke” of a wonky control scheme or level is usually at the player’s expense, which makes it hard to tolerate. It’s Anecdotal’s 39 Days to Mars feels like a series of “jokes” in exactly that vein, and while it does an admirable job of getting some genuine laughs out of the way you interact with it, it’s not enough to make the journey memorable.

The story follows 1800s explorers Sir Albert Wickes and The Right Honourable Clarence Baxter, who decide on a whim to fly a steampunk spaceship to Mars. They need to prepare for the journey by taking care of the little things, like nabbing a key hanging from a tree, or finding the map. Although there isn’t much a of narrative, the affair has a charming, understated tone to it, as Albert and Clarence display a casual indifference to both the enormous task of getting to Mars and the life-threatening complications they encounter along the way.

Of course, the key isn’t just hanging on the tree, nor is the map laid out before you. Each menial task on the way to Mars is an intricate puzzle you coordinate with a friend to solve. To get the key, for example, players rotate one of two wheels that moves a hook and wire horizontally or vertically along a short maze to retrieve it without touching the edges on the way back. To assemble the map, both players have to hold a piece and rotate it into place.

The controls for each of these puzzles are simple in practice, but take enough getting used to that you spend as much time fumbling with different switches and objects as they do coming up with solutions. As the puzzles become more involved, they lead to comedies of errors, where one player might have a good grasp of how to move a claw that mines coal, but the other is incapable of operating the bicycle it’s attached to. That might sound frustrating, but it makes for some fun laughs at your buddy’s (or your own) expense as you flail your way to a solution. Thankfully, none of the puzzles are so devious that you have to sit there and problem-solve for long; the trick is usually in figuring out how to properly implement a simple solution.

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Unfortunately, the triumphant moments don’t linger too long. While it’s fun to solve puzzles as a team, none of them are tricky or memorable enough to provide a true sense of accomplishment. You can run through every puzzle in about 90 minutes, and the ending arrives just as the ideas at play start picking up. This made me hungry for more fun experiments, but ultimately unsatisfied.

I’ve talked about 39 Days to Mars as a co-op adventure not because you can’t play it alone, but because you shouldn’t. The puzzles are clearly designed for two players (even the single-player option in the menu suggests playing co-op), and the haphazard fun of mucking around with some of the stranger contraptions with a buddy turns to serious frustration when playing alone. The puzzles are identical in both modes, and since most require multiple deliberate, simultaneous actions, keeping track of two cursors and buttons simultaneously makes problem-solving laborious.

As a result, most puzzles wear out their welcome far more quickly as you try to wrap your head around these intricate contraptions. Testing your coordination with unintuitive control schemes in arcade-style games like QWOP is one thing, but because here you’re working toward definite, finite solutions, I felt less like I was testing myself and more like I was struggling just to move a simple puzzle piece around. I didn’t even get the fun of laughing at someone else’s screw-up, then working with them to accomplish something.

39 Days to Mars does a better job of relaying comedy through gameplay than most games, but the “jokes” it tells aren’t worthwhile. Little is terrible about the core concept or its execution (aside from the awful single-player mode), but nothing was outstanding or notable, either. I had a few laughs with the people I played, but by the time I reached Mars, I was ready to just shrug my shoulders and go back home.

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Don’t Miss It This Time

When Tropical Freeze released on the Wii U in 2014, it was exciting because it marked Donkey Kong Country’s belated entry into the world of high definition. It played well, included tons of nostalgic and novel platforming ideas, and offered a significant, but fair challenge. Unfortunately, simply by the nature of its underperforming platform, not many people played it. The Switch re-release offers a chance for those that skipped the Wii U to play a fantastic platformer, but even for those that played it four years ago, there is at least one incentive to make a return trip to Donkey Kong Country.

The transition from Wii U to Switch by the original developer, Retro, is seamless. The platforming is accurate and fast, the resolution improves from 720p to 1080p when docked, and the soundtrack is worth the effort of seeking out headphones.

The big addition for the Switch version is the inclusion of a playable Funky Kong, which changes the experience in some significant and fun ways. Tropical Freeze is hard, and if you want to play the difficult-but-fair original version, you can. Playing as Funky Kong, however, functions as an easy mode. He has more hearts and does not take damage from spike pits. He can also roll infinitely, breathe underwater, double-jump, and perform a floating drop. He’s a combination of some of the distinguishing abilities of the other playable Kongs, and it makes it all much easier. If you found Tropical Freeze too difficult, Funky makes the challenge much more manageable, which is great for young or impatient players.

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For skilled players, however, Funky is a speed-runner’s dream. I have no delusions of calling myself a speed-runner, but ripping through a level using Funky Kong’s infinite roll and double jump created a new type of high-speed challenge I enjoyed tremendously. It made me feel like a Donkey Kong Country expert and wonder why I ever called the original challenging. Going back to the original mode made me quickly remember, but as a returning tourist, I liked having a mode that let me quickly play through the whole game again.

The Switch version reaffirms that Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze is a fantastic platformer. Having a new character control and a handheld version of the game is great for previous owners, but the real audience is those who missed the original release.

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