The End Is Nigh Reviews

can't tell if i love the game or hate myself

10/10 would die again

I paid for this game just to get cancer

from corrupting your fav game to becoming a hivemind

absolute gas precision platformer

this game made me destroy my pc and monitor 4 times, 11/10 would 100%

This game really nails the sweet spot for difficult 2d platformers. I died something like 1400 times completing the game for the first time but never got truly frustrated. Controls are very tight; the game demands high precision and sometimes quick reaction, but it gives you the tools you need to get through its challenges. Level design is great, soundtrack of reimagined classical music is great, voice work is great (got some laughs from me, although wisely it's used sparingly). Comparisons to Super Meat Boy are warranted, but I appreciate that the "levels" in this game are all continuous, Celeste-style. Fans of either game will find a lot to love here. Looking forward to going back and hunting for colectibles!

I can't believe it took me this long to get around to The End Is Nigh. What a fantastic precision platformer with the perfect amount of challenge. The level design in this game is just fantastic and I love the little squishy noises of the protagonist as he flings himself through the decrepit wasteland of his world, his shenanigans and deaths set to some great energetic music by Ridiculon. And best of all - this game really respects your time, unlike its spiritual predecessor Super Meat Boy, with no annoying time-wasting bosses and a lightning fast respawn after death. If I had to make a criticism it's that I still think spikes should only hurt you on the top of their hitbox. The sides of spikes should act like walls. Super Meat Boy also had this problem, and while it does encourage precision, it just feels bad to almost eke out a really difficult screen and be insta-killed by what visually doesn't feel like it should hurt you. At least this game doesn't have pit obstacles with hazards that dubiously stretch above the pits even though their sprites would suggest otherwise! I really hope Edmund makes another platformer in his career because this and SMB are pretty much the best in the genre.

In my opinion The End Is Nigh is some of Edmund McMillen's best work to date. I've been a huge fan of his work for a while now and I strongly believe this is his most underrated work by a long shot, and easily one of my favorite platformers. McMillen shows mastery over platforming level design that has been fine tuned since the days of working on games such as Meat Boy and Gish. Every screen is so well designed when it comes to introducing concepts and building upon them as the game continues. Even by the end of the game mechanics are continued to be introduced and built upon. Fair warning if you're interested in purchasing this game, this is an extremely difficult game. As an achievement hunter myself, I would not dare perfecting this game, if you're looking to fully complete this game you need to be ready to die a lot. This game does something correct that a lot of other platformers get wrong, which is the death screen. This game does it right in that there IS no death screen outside of some bonus retro levels. When Ash dies, he's immidiately sent back to the beginning of the screen no questions asked outside of a little explosion animation that lasts a fraction of a second. you're constantly in the action, there's no walk back, no loading screen, no long death animation, you're always trying to make that last jump, always improving and it never gets boring. One underappreciated aspect of this game, especially when compared to the likes of Super Meat Boy is just how good the controls feel. One problem I had with super meat boy was that at times the controls felt a little too demanding of your timing, Meat boy will only jump if you push the button while hes on solid ground with seemingly no grace period. In The End Is Nigh this is not a problem. The game is very forgiving when it comes to the timing of your jumps, which may seem like I'm complimenting the game for baby proofing the gameplay, however there's a difference between baby proofing and just making the game feel good to play, and I feel that The End Is Nigh perfectly walks the line between unforgiving precise difficulty, and just feeling plain good to play. On another note, the game also excels in the aesthetics department. Ridiculon did a wonderful job remixing classical pieces into their very own Metallic style, you can tell that creating the music for this game improved their skills as a band drastically especially once the Repentance DLC for Isaac came out. Visually the game is very simplistic, often only using black and a single other shade for each individual area. The simplistic art style goes hand and hand with the gameplay, as you never feel cluttered or like you can't see where ash is on the screen, there's almost always a very clear image of what's going on, but not all the time which brings me to some slight flaws of the game. For one, in some areas the simple art style can actually hinder your ability to figure out what's going to kill you. The first example that comes to mind is in "The Future" levels, it can sometimes be difficult to distinguish if what you're about to jump on is solid ground or if it's a giant tumor that will instantly kill you if contacted. The other example that is far more hindering especially when grinding out the last few in game achievements can be found in the cartridge challanges. The spikes in the retro style are too rounded in my opinion, and can make it lining up certain jumps a little bit of guess work, If the spikes were less rounded and more pointy this issue could've been avoided. Despite these very minor flaws The End is Nigh still stands as an incredible hidden gem of indie gaming. I would put this game on the same pedestal that I hold Celeste to. Just an absolute master class in platforming.

Basically everything you could hope for in a precision platformer including nice humor and an amazing soundtrack. The difficulty ramps up pretty quick and no air-dashs or double-jumps might be off-putting to some