Rock Boshers DX: Directors Cut

This is a faithful - perhaps too faithful - modern take on those 8-bit games which completely crushed you as a child gamer. Think a bit of Hewson and a bit of Ultimate, with chip tunes from the likes of Hubbard and Jones. It is lovingly nostalgic yet fully modernised to your 2020's rig. It has some great touches like a choice between whether you want to play the computer (ZX Spectrum) or console (I dunno, probably NES or Famicon) version with appropriate loading screens and graphics and sound styles (the Spectrum version even has colour clash, which is a great touch) It is super-playable and fun, at least at the beginning... Millennials and after will never know how punishing games were back then! By level 8 you'll be fuming that you had 7 lives but then a thing you haven't encountered before can insta-kill you and Game Over! At least, in a nod to modern gaming, you can restart at the level you were on, not all the way back to the start :) Lovingly crafted and true to its target (and also, weirdly, VERY British in tone!) this is definitely fun to play and a modern recreation of where the games you play now came from.

Thought it was gonna be fun. Turns out this game is hell. 10/10

I just played this for a few minutes and this game has aged incredibly well and still fun even to this day. I think the most impressive thing about this game is how nice and tight the level design is. Everything seems to work so well in these small levels. Very impressive.

Awesome retro gaming experience!

I regret buying this game... ...because it was as damn hard as a soulslike. I wasn't looking to buy an excruciating experience!!! In the first few levels I was smiling at the ideas and creativity, after Level 9 onwards I was gritting my teeth and leaning forward to beat this sadistic creation of the developer. The sum of par times on all levels is 35 minutes and it still took me 6.5h! A LOT of retries. Thankfully it doesn't go on forever and there are fresh ideas/challenges in every level. The game even finishes in a completely different genre! Though the final boss is a neckbreaker (look at the statistics only 7% of people finish the game - Me included!) Switching to keyboard for that last section made it much easier.. The arcade games are a cool addition and smoothed over my angry face after finishing the game. Thoroughly well made, but not the genre I was looking for (non-soulslike adventure dual stick shooter). If you like very difficult games and like the look, go for it. Thumbs up. I can recommend "Astro Aqua Kitty" from Tikipod, though. Also has a neckbreaker final boss, but the overall game was much more forgiving and has very nice design.

woof!