Primal Light

Developer: Fat Gem
Publisher: Fat Gem
Release: 2020
Platform: PC (played), Switch, XOne, Mac, Linux
Genre: Action

Being Primal Light a game so deeply rooted in the past, it’s baffling to see gameplay mechanics elegantly nailed 30 years ago being convolutedly (unnecessarily so too) implemented in it: dashing, slipping down ladders, hanging from hooks, all need additional d-pad inputs here--never required in their original forms (e.g. Mega Man X, Aero the Acrobat, Darkwing Duck respectively); even sliding can get you stuck middle-action--despite its original flawless implementation in 1990’s Mega Man III setting the standard right off the bat. The aggravating fact that such moves can’t be canceled into others pile up against the game’s overall light-metroidvania feel too, and hidden passive charms aren’t game changers either--to the point they would’ve off-put exploration if extra lives and health/cure upgrades weren’t worth the trouble.

Getting stuck in ladders like it's 1986.

Besides the beautiful (even if uneven and not cohesive at times) pixel art, the game shines when it comes to boss battles though. The contained arenas make for a better opportunity for such custom movesets being fully explored, and the puzzle patterns emerging from that mix pose a decent challenge without being unfair or feeling like a slog.

Primal Light can be a good 16-bit retro fix for some players, but it works best as a reminder that aesthetics alone can only scratch the surface of what's frequently overlooked as a deeper nostalgia itch.

Avenging Spirit

Developer: CP.BRAiN
Publisher: Jaleco
Release: 1991
Platform: Arcade, Game Boy (played)
Genre: Action

We’ve been playing “shapeshift” games for too long now to afford not labeling them the way we do with “metroidvanias”, for instance. From the visionary kick-off Rock Man (where equipping defeated bosses’ weapons changes not only the way the game plays but also the hero’s appearance), to the seminal Altered Beast (where shapeshifting is even mandatory for the game to progress), through Kirby’s embodiment of copycat abilities all the way down to Super Mario Odyssey video games had been messing around with that mechanic for the last 30+ years.

Of course, there are several forms of “evolving” or “upgrading” avatars out there; but games rarely put their balance at stakes by allowing the player to be virtually anything—chances are even slimmer if the change can be made on the fly and outside the borders of a linear skill tree of sorts. (Series like Pokémon or Shin Megami Tensei have a nice way to work around that by allowing you to gather/manage an army of diverse critters without necessarily changing the protagonist—or the main rules that go with it, for that matter—but that’s another story.)

Well, Avenging Spirit was one of the early examples in that particular kind of risk taking that managed not only to be primarily fun but also not game breaking.

Mafia goon, fire-spitting raptor, grenade-throwing Rambo, athletic kick-boxer; all at your disposal.

In the role of a ghost trying to save his girl before the final departure, fun here is inherent to the gameplay premise: to possess enemies (bosses aside, understandably and unfortunately) and use their bodies until there’s no vital energy left in them—or until you stumble into a more interesting/powerful one and decide switching to it. Separate health bars (for both the ghost and the body) ensure you can take full advantage of any vial you decided to inhabit, but also keeps the player from breezing through the level in spectral form since staying like that causes the respective energy to drain out.

That feature alone helps with the balance issue up from foundation, but reinforcements come from an unexpected field too: level design. Strong enemies are either hidden or rare; environment hazards like lasers hurt strong and weak equally; and short-cutting through tricky zones as a ghost can be riskier than facing dangers on foot—it’s all up to who’s in command.

Eventually exploration rewards the player in more than one ways: the “good” ending can only be achieved if 3 keys scattered throughout the game are found—and they actually help overcoming the last fight in a morbid way (no spoilers).

Even if such ideas are still around us in several forms they didn’t evolved from a particularly clear lineage; obviously, that means we couldn’t get to call a game simply a “shapeshifter”. But it can be at least an interesting tag that ties quite a varied fauna together.

Kirby & the Amazing Mirror

Developer: HAL Laboratory, Capcom, Flagship, Dimps, Arika
Publisher: Nintendo
Release: 2004
Platform: Game Boy Advance
Genre: Metroidvania

Picture yourself playing Metroid. You dig down through a big deal of planet, surviving tricky menaces along the claustrophobic way, until you hit a missile hatch sealing the path. That’s when you realize you need to get back to grab some since you could only carry one equipment at a time, and you’ve chosen the Morphing Ball. In a less dramatic and more colorful way, that happens a lot in Kirby & the Amazing Mirror.

Of course, the backtracking is diminished by the very enemies you find getting to places since Kirby’s copycat ability can be put to use at (almost) any time, but needed abilities are often too far for bothering—or you can easily get lost in the pure chaos of the world’s map and don’t even know how to get back.

Anyways, that’s part of the problem of a Kirby built from ground up to be a multiplayer experience. There is a clever “cellphone” system (with battery life and all) for making it up to a lonely player—it allows you to call reinforcements in the form of other kirbies—but the friendly AI is too dumb to rely on. That can render particularly frustrating moments when it comes to simple environment puzzles like standing on a button to open a door or helping moving a heavier stone, for instance.

Bosses pose a decent challenge to a lone wolf as well, and the final boss stretch is borderline absurd. Kirby’s unruly physics don’t add up well either—he can even climb ramps faster than he threads regular terrain—and the short (at start) health bar bring the Zelda syndrome up (that meaning “dying happens more in the beginning than towards the end”).

But Kirby is charming as hell, and the presentation delivers that in spades. One of the best pixel work to ever grace GBA can be found here (despite the heavy slowdowns when the screen gets busy), and that’s no small feature given the competition.

SNES³

In the end this Kirby should be approached more like an adventure sandbox than a proper action platformer. It just doesn’t go that well when it takes itself too seriously.