Little Bug

In this game you play as Nyah, nicknamed Little Bug, a young girl with a wonderful spirit of exploration. Nyah get's lost in a dream world where you must navigate many obstacles with the help of a little glowing orb. The controls are nicely done. If you are playing with a controller it is setup so that the left stick controls Nyah and the right stick controls the glowing orb. Using the right trigger Nyah can swing from the orb by a glowing beam of light for a short time. It's a unique way to move around and requires some strategy and coordination to get through some of the puzzles. Overall it's very likable. I'm not sure why this game isn't more popular, maybe it is just too new. I have to say, Little Bug has a LOT of heart and it's a very enjoyable game. The art is beautiful and when paired with the lovely music it creates a vibe that seems to give me back some of my childhood wonder. The game mechanic of swinging from the orb of light is easy to learn but still offers a good challenge. I would 100% recommend this game. I don't usually write reviews so I apologize if anything is poorly worded or if I missed important details. I only wrote this review in hopes that it could bring some attention to this incredible game that has so much personality in a world where many games seem to be losing heart. The market is saturated and full of cash grabs. There are, however, still good games out there and this is one of them.

At the first glance, I fell in love of the art of Little Bug, then I decided to buy it. The game is a kind of "Twin-sticks platformer" with really cool idea of gameplay. The game can be a little hard from time to time, but nothing as hard as a Super Meat Boy, for example (I died 134 times on my first playthrough, though). And once you finished the game, you've a plenty of bonus levels, which is nice. Nice work, developpers.

The dark lighting, neon colors, and ambient music make for a really cool atmosphere, especially if you're playing it at night... ...but the controls, glitches, and spike in difficulty level ruin it for me. Some of the level designs are like troll-level edits people make for ROM hacks. If I want tough-as-nails, I'd just play Super Meat Boy or Dustforce. You control two characters simultaneously: A little girl (left analog stick), and a spirit light with a "tractor beam" power (with the right analog stick). I would've preferred if the girl was controlled by the D-Pad, since it's more precise than using the left analog stick, especially in a side-scrolling platformer. The girl can't jump by herself; she's a grade school age girl, that's ALL grade school age children like doing half the time, is just JUMPING up and down repeatedly (and with excitement!) A LOT of the difficulty would be alleviated if the girl could just jump on her own! It's not like the rest of the buttons on the controller were even mapped to something else; it's a platformer, SO HAVE A JUMP BUTTON! You depend SOLELY on the spirit light and its "tractor beam" to make jumps; the problem arises when your character gains high speed (namely when slipping on ice), you're not able to make the spirit light move that fast to keep up with the girl, the spirit light just disappears off screen, and there's NO way to make it catch up with the girl, if only because it's probably getting stuck on/behind something that's also off screen! If there was a BUTTON that allowed the light to respawn close to the girl, that wouldn't be a problem either! There were a number of times the girl clipped through the ground/floor, and either fell to her death, or just got STUCK inside an obstacle or two; there was a section where you go through/atop some pipes; either she got stuck INSIDE the pipe, or got stuck when I tried walking across the top of the outside of the pipe; had to RESTART THE GAME FIVE TIMES because of this!

"But mom you're not listening to me! I can fly!" This is a wonderful, unique game that has a nice atmosphere and great level design as well. It is memorable in a way that few games are for me and is overall one of my favorites. The others I can think of that have a particularly memorable experience are RiME (that unfortunately has audio issues on my system), the Amanita adventure games (Botanicula, Samorost 3, Machinarium), and Fossil Echo (not so good gameplay or story but really nice atmosphere). RiME in particular has a similar mood for me, although the gameplay is quite a bit different. The main game was a pleasant challenge for me; I got zapped by the neon (often resulting in a neat lightning effect) 209 times to make to the end and missed several collectables. The checkpoints are not every other platform but also not all that far. The trailer video gives a great overview of the gameplay. The few bonus levels I tried so far are too difficult for me but if you find the main game too easy you might enjoy those. I already went back and replayed the first half or so of the game (much more quickly this time, although I still got zapped quited a bit). It is not all that long but not super short either, a good length that I wish more games would aim for to really focus on a fun and memorable experience rather than length. Like another reviewer I don't know why it isn't more popular. Other games I recommend: Card City Nights, Costume Quest, Guacamelee, 140, Falcom games in general (Trails in the Sky, Tokyo Xanadu, Ys Origin, I, II, Memories of Celceta, and VIII, Gurumin), Psychonauts, Etherlords 2, Yoku's Island Express, Beatbuddy, CrossCode, Theme Hospital, Roller Coaster Tycoon series, Moto Racer, Stardew Valley, Sword of the Samurai, Defender's Quest, Kerbal Space Program, Infinifactory, Cities in Motion, Hob, Grandia II, Escape Goat, Adventures of Shuggy, Waking Mars.