A Pixel Story Reviews

Precision platformers get away with having a brutal difficulty level through a correct combination of factors: rapid respawns, no forced waiting, short levels that are also well-designed, and extremely precise control. This game falls short in 3 of those 4 categories. The rapid respawns are decent, though there is still a bit of hesitation that can throw your timing off. Certain challenge areas will actually make you wait for quite a while for everything to either line up, or because the patterns don't take into account a good player with enough practice and skill trying to first-cycle obstacles. Many of the challenge levels are also a bit too long with a mishmash of obstacles rather that focusing on only a couple concepts and pushing them to the limits. In addition, there are a lot of BS moments with random guesswork littered in the second half of many gauntlets. Your character is slow, clunky, and has to deal with very imprecise obstacles many times. For example, a common mechanic is pushing left or right to alter your velocity from springs. The problem is that the movement is entirely momentum based, which has no business in a precision platformer. Other mechanics are also poorly thought out. There's this one puzzle that led to me just quitting the game outright. Late in the game, you start to manipulate clones in order to be in two places at once and there's a gauntlet full of lasers and moving platforms that you must pass to progress. The gauntlet itself isn't really that bad. The problem is that unless you literally get you clone started at the EXACT FRAME and platform positions as when you started, the clone with crash and burn somewhere along the way. Skip this one...