Elephantasy: Flipside

What a special game. It has a fair share of problems and it's definitely not for everyone, but generally I think this is a hidden gem that hasn't been discovered by nearly enough people. I suppose you could call it a "puzzle platformer", but "riddle platformer" would be slightly more apt. Even though there are a good amount of puzzles scattered throughout the world, the bigger problem you are aiming to solve is where to go, what to do, how to get to places. This game is extremely self-driven, with Belle being dropped into a world with almost no direction beyond a few hints, and if that doesn't sound like your thing then this game isn't for you. Personally, I found this "open world-ish" approach very refreshing, and enjoyed finding secrets while exploring both worlds. It would be a lie to say the platforming isn't jank, but the roughness of the whole game feels "jank in the right way" to me. You will likely be immediately repulsed when you walk up the cliffs for the first time and have to brace jumping UP a Z-level, but by the end of my playthrough I was completely used to it. There are a few places where the isometric view made platforming nearly impossible, but you are given tool…

There's a lot to like here but I generally feel like the game doesn't really want me to enjoy it at any sort of reasonable pace. Powerups are unique and multi-faceted, and their features overlap in ways that makes exploration over the same terrain feel varied, but even with that you'll still end up walking the same paths over and over *way* too often. I feel like I'm constantly rummaging around for scraps of new rooms/collectibles, then I'll find some and have fun for a few minutes, then I'm back to rummaging. The premise of increasing your inventory size to be able to solve more complex puzzles or traverse the world more easily sounds cool on paper, but I feel like this mechanic is constantly fighting with the level design in a way that means you're rarely ever able to just settle in and enjoy some consistent puzzle solving for a few minutes. You'll enter one area which functions like a "dungeon" for a few specific powerups but it turns out actually there are corners in this dungeon you can't go because you need a totally different powerup than any of the ones you've been using, necessitating a trip back to Central Hell, which is actually accomplished faster by quitting to main me…

A weird but not unwelcome hybrid of Solstice and Fez with unconventional metroidvania gating. I would probably only recommend this to people who would still play NES games and not get frustrated easily (it plays like and has the quirks of games from that era, despite being a bit more forgiving). You get access to all the upgrades required for progression near the beginning of the game, but you can only carry a certain amount of them at a time until you unlock more slots by exploring the world. Discovering what upgrades actually allow you to do and how they interact with each other is a big part of the fun. The platforming is harder than you’d think because of the perspective—you’ll have plenty of instances of poor spacial judgment—but fortunately the game’s as forgiving as it needs to be with this in mind. Typically, when you die, you immediately respawn in the same room. There are a few sequences of 4-6 rooms you’ll have to do in one go else restart in the first room of that sequence, but that’s as punishing as it gets (besides the final boss, which is kind of a nightmare). I’m hardly a master at platforming and was able to do everything without too much fuss. There’s a lot of…

Played an hour of this. A lot of interesting mechanics. Sorta feels like a modern take of Zelda 1.

i didn't know what i was getting into based on the first game this is what sequels should be platforming is kinda hard sometimes

very fun