Guacamelee! Super Turbo Championship Edition Reviews

Absolutely cinema

"gonna cut it off, chop it up, & make some guacamelee"

A Quick One Before the Eternal Worm Devours Toronto (Thank God!!!) If there was ever a game that was part of that era of indie game that walked the well-treaded path that Braid braved first, but was still weighed down by the """humor""" of the early 2010s, it's Guacamelee. One of the first games to bring back and even being to solidify the sub-genre of "Metroidvania", Drinkbox Studios knew that they had to hit this out the park when they rolled this out. This being one of their first major releases (no one remembers Tales From Space), it was all or nothing, it would either make a splash and make ripples that would influence or fall flat on its face. Can we look back at this game and see confidently that this succeeded and accomplished all that it set out to do? No, not at all, it's why I'm reviewing Super Turbo Championship Edition and not Gold/the Original. It took Drinkbox Studio two times to make this game okay and most of that is due to the looks of the game and the sound of the music. The soundtrack is actually really good the more I think about it, it really has that driving force that pushes you along the game, always high energy, but never grating or tiring. The way this game looks is another mark for it, it's really lively, it's vibrant, no expenses were spared in the making of the stages, the characters, and the backgrounds. It's great. I wish I can say the same about the gameplay. It's not horrible by any means, but I wouldn't call it particularly good either. It's all sorta limp and nebulous. When you can play on the hard mode of a game and make it out of the other side of the tunnel by basically doing the same combo over and over with maybe a headbutt/uppercut here or there to get past some of the move-specific shields, we got a problem. I did not change it up much during combat, no switch-up, no change, just straight oatmeal and I beat the game with little effort. Hell, most of my deaths was due to the platforming and lava pits which weren't even that big of a problem because this game gives you checkpoint after checkpoint. If the punishment for dying/failing is backtracking like 2-3 rooms, where is the excitement gonna come from? Why would I bother trying if the most Imma get is a slap on the wrist? Another thing that bothered me about this game is the journey to 100%. If there is a genre that wants the player to get every thing, it's the metroidvania. A good metroidvania leaves bread crumbs for you, it litters the maps, the halls, rooms, walls, courtyards, and everything in between with these little goodies, the player wants them, but they can't get them. Yet. Progression is the name of the game here and nothing is better than getting an upgrade or item that makes your character better while also progressing the game forward. A double jump is useful. An uppercut is useful, especially when some enemies require an uppercut now. Same goes for a wallrun, a headbutt, a smash, a dash, a kick, the ability to shrink down, the ability to switch between realms on the fly. All these things are not only useful for traversal, the combat much more open, but the game begins to require these power-ups. You gotta use everything you got to win, to be the hero. To finally get that 100 fucking percent. You wanna know what isn't useful or fun? Having to get gold medals in challenges in order to get an absolute dogshit egg bomb that has no other purpose other than exploding marked blocks. That's it. It doesn't make you better, it doesn't get you more movement, you can barely use it during combat and even when you do, it sucks. Why bother designing it like this? It's like the Balan Wonderworld costumes that do only ONE thing poorly for one section of the game. It's straight up ass. Remember that humor I mentioned early? You wanna date your game? Put in a meme. Like, bro, you're telling me that an entire dev team looked at Business Cat and thought it was evergreen humor? For fuck's sake, one of your moves is called the Dashing Derpderp. C'mon man, even back in 2014, we were better than this. Guacamelee is a pretty package, gently tied in a bow, wrapped with care. It's a shame that the only things inside it are 99 cent wrestler toys that smell weird, tamarindo candy wrappers and Michaels Dia de los Muertos made in china plastic skulls. Two two's my word croski, you don't like Guacamelee, you're dess nons, you're straight gerbert fam, wasteyute. You're just miskeens, i catch you, it's wrapski styll. I know your cyattie's batttried by the mandem, crodie. That's Toronto slang. You read what I typed and you tell me that Toronto shouldn't be consumed by the Coming Fire and burned to ash.

DO YOU LIKE HOLLOW KNIGHT?! DO YOU LIKE DEMONS?! DO YOU LIKE CHICKENS?! DO YOU LIKE DEMON CHICKENS?! THEN THIS IS THE GAME FOR YOU! Now to the real review This game's similarities with Hollow Knight can't go unnoticed. This game is definitely funnier than Hollow Knight, and has an easier to follow story, and it's easier in general, and it has optional multiplayer. I have bias since this I played this game way before and have much nostalgia, and even so I say this game is only a little worse than Hollow Knight, despite what I've been saying. I truly recommend this game, but I've never played Guacamelee 2 and I never will, in fear of it ruining the experience. Either way, Guacamelee got its sequel before Silksong soooooooooo Sensational game. Wish I could re-experience for the first time. 8.5/10