Sunblaze

The art style, humour and music are all great but the gameplay can be frustrating for those not willing to bash their head against a wall for a few hours attempting to figure out just how perfect each jump needs to be, mitigated somewhat by fact that Sunblazer is very easy to pick up and put down. For the right person, this is a 5 star game, for everyone else, probably a 1

The game counts how many times you die. At first, I felt some anxiety over this, but my anxiety was cured shortly after by the absurdity of how brutally deadly this game is. After a while, the high death count is basically a badge of honor and a point of amusement. Speaking of brutality, I don't think anyone has commented on the somewhat disturbing squishing and splatting sounds made when you die, or the concerning number of barrels that could be filled by the bloody death effects. But while many games depict blood in a disturbing way and others in a stylized "cool" way...this game I think is showing blood in a cute bubbly way. Enjoy.

Five Alarm Chili is meant to be spicy. Some don't like their chili that hot, but if you order the Five Alarm Chili and you can't eat it because there's too much heat for you, that doesn't make the chili bad, it's just bad for you. Some like it that hot, and they're welcome to have it their way. Sunblaze is a spicy platformer, and it's a bit too spicy for me. That doesn't make it a bad game, just too spicy for me, and I suspect too spicy for many other as well. I gave up on Sunblazer about halfway through the 4th of six story chapters. I did not finish this game, and I doubt I'll come back to it. But the game is quite good, if this is the sort of thing you're looking for. The game is a series of one screen puzzle platforming challenges, where you have to figure out how to clear the room, then do the moves that will get you there. And its a real challenge. But the inputs are good, the movement precise, and your moveset is clear. The puzzles aren't particularly hard to figure out, but executing your plan will require quite a bit of skill, and they don't give you much room for error. One misstep and you're dead. But thankfully you respawn almost instantly, and I never felt bogged down by dying, it was easy to make attempt after attempt. The plot of the game is pretty bare bones, and simply exists to give you a reason to do one room after another. You're the child of a superhero, and you want to be a superhero. Your dad finally lets you start training to be a superhero and you go into a training room simulator. Obviously things go wrong, the training room turns deadly, and you're trapped inside and the only way to get out is to complete the increasingly difficult challenges the training room sets for you. Basic stuff, but serviceable for the intended purpose. Anyways, if you really liked the Path of Pain from Hollow Knight, or did all the cassette levels in Celeste, this might be the game for you, but it certainly isn't the game for everyone.

Full disclosure, I got the game for free. That said, there was a moment playing this game where the controls and animation combined to make me feel like I was controlling a budding superhero as she learned to control her powers. True, her powers are movement based (she can double jump and dash forward quickly), but the way things combine just feels so great. The story, while nothing to write home about, is not actively harmful to gameplay. The story amounts to "we want to explain why our hero is bothering to go through the super frustrating levels". It reminds me of the stories in old DOS games. One nice feature of the game is the "accessibility options", which, to be honest, are just easy to find and turn on and off cheats. They range from infinite doublejumps and invincibility to just having slightly higher jumps. On the one hand, sometimes it is nice to just have the tools to beat a level. On the other hand, it sometimes feels like I am robbing myself when I turn them on. Ultimately, however, the cheats don't always let you trivially bypass a level (and there was at least one level where I turned them on and still couldn't win so I turned them off and left the game for a while and then beat the level without them on when I came back).

I discovered Sunblaze by complete accident and it quickly became one of my all-time favorite platformers. It's such a cool hybrid between tricky platforming and fast-paced puzzle solving. I actually cannot believe that this game isn't more widely known. + Controls and aerial movement feel just right for a for a precision platformer + The best part of the game is when it just "clicks" and you manage to chain your jumps together into one fluid motion to beat one of the bite-sized levels and then immediately transition to the next one with a satisfying swoosh, creating a really addictive gameplay loop + Also: You can just go! Resets are super fast and thanks to the splendid level design things always line up perfectly if you move immediately upon spawn + Difficulty starts low but gets quite challenging. If this sounds too daunting, you can always fall back onto the easier 'Zen Mode' and other accessibility options + The frequent introduction of new hazards and interactive elements keeps things fresh and even the unlockable hard mode levels still have something new to offer + The soundtrack hits just the right balance between head-bobbing tunes and chill background music which suits this kind of gameplay perfectly + You can pet the cat - The introduction features some awkward meme humor that just creates a very unprofessional vibe for a first impression. I can only implore everybody to bear with it because there's a great game waiting beyond - The final boss doesn't feel very hype and is very trial and error until you memorize the scripted sequence of attacks. It's really not that bad, it's just a shame that the game ends on a bit of a low note because of this However, the real shame is that not more people are playing this amazing game. I also got Sunblaze for my Switch because it's just perfect to play a couple of levels on the go whenever you got some time. It's just one of those titles that I can wholeheartedly recommend without any second thoughts.