Gem Venture

I just finished World 1, and my impressions are very good. It’s a really cute platformer with a surprising number of movement mechanics; imagine “Super Mario World,” but you can also sprint, wall-jump, and dive-jump. It's quite an ambitious undertaking for a 2D platformer, but it works really well. The pixel art is also really cute and has a very “crisp” look; I’d eat this game up just for the art style alone. A really cool game.

I've had this game on my wishlist for quite some time, but I have to say that I am a bit disappointed with how it turned out; there are a number of glaring issues that prevent me from giving it a positive rating. Here are my thoughts after a full playthrough: GAME SUMMARY Gem Venture is a 2D Action-platformer in which you play as Axel, a pickaxe-wielding miner who goes on an adventure to recover the “Sacred Gems” from the evil Tourmaline. The game is loosely inspired by the Nintendo Wii game “Super Paper Mario” (or SPM), featuring a similar battle system, level-based structure, and general theming; as a certified Paper Mario Junkie (tm), I of course had to play it once I found this out. THINGS I LIKED -The protagonist's movement is very fluid and responsive, and the level design often takes advantage of this. The game isn’t particularly difficult, but that doesn’t make running through the stages any less fun. You also learn new moves after reaching certain level milestones (5, 10, 20, 40), which give you additional options to traverse the stages. The “stylish” system where you gain additional EXP for chaining enemy hits is also pretty great. -The card system is probably the be…

Lovers of Mario 2D challenge will enjoy this ;) ! Definitly not as deep as a kayzo for exemple but still a tone of fast strat and quick movments. Great game !

I love a good old fashion platformer. This game has cool moves, hidden treasures and cards. I haven't finished yet, but getting close. I guess it could be a little more difficult, but besides that I like what I see.

A pretty fun little 2d platformer. It looks very nice and the music is great. The level design is fantastic! Moving through the levels and finding all the secrets and cards was so fun. It took me a bit to get the timing down on the midair tricks (it seems you have to press Jump like [i]right after[/i] you bounce off an enemy), but when I got the hang of it, it became extremely satisfying to try to jump on as many enemies in a row as I could. Very fun! The level up system was pretty neat too. You can really feel the Super Paper Mario influence in this game. Especially with the story... this game's story is very similar to Super Paper Mario's story... maybe TOO similar, honestly. That's probably my one gripe with this game, I would've liked to see something more unique. But, like I said, everything else in this game is phenomenal, and it's very inspiring that this was made by one person, with another doing the music. Highly recommended!

This isn't the most indepth review because I haven't finished the game. But I do want to say one thing. As a massive fan of Super Paper Mario, this game gives the same vibe in a way no other game has before. Sure, it doesn't have the same story and 2D-3D gameplay, but the vibe feels the same. It's not to explain, but it just feels the same. All I hope now is that the rest of the game lives up.