Drenched in Mexican culture and mashing together a half-dozen classic games, is a challenging and delightful experience. It draws heavily on a triumvirate of combat, platforming, and exploration to create a memorable romp through a multi-dimensional world, consistently offering up vexing problems that take skill and creativity to solve. Emboldened by a confident art style and sense of humor, its only drawback is that it may be too much to handle for casual gamers even as it strikes an oft-ignored chord for hardcore fans.Best known for its superb Mutant Blobs Attack! From last year, Toronto’s Drinkbox Studios has gone bigger and better with Guacamelee! Playing as a Luchador (wrestler) tasked with saving the World of the Living from an evil leader of the World of the Dead, you'll navigate a rich and colorful environment inhabited with interesting enemies in both dimensions.
Over time, you'll acquire various powers and skills in order to steel yourself for tougher battles and seemingly impossible platforming tasks, all to prepare for the final fight.' A meaty experience with terrific combat, lovely visuals, and a smart sense of humor.' The combat is definitely satisfying. A deep feature set offers multitudes of options, from ground and air-based combos to special moves designed to match particularly equipped enemies.
Title: Guacamelee! Super Turbo Championship Edition Developer: Drinkbox Studios Release Date: October 8, 2018. Reviewed On: Publisher:. Super Turbo Championship Edition isn't a vapid rebranding or a blatant cash-in, but a welcome infusion of the original game with new areas, monsters, and bundled-in DLC. I'd definitely recommend it even to those that already experienced it on PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita, or PC.
While some enemies can easily be dispatched with mindless button-mashing, others require thought, planning, and a quick set of distinct combinations to eliminate. Some fights get frustrating, especially as multiple enemy types descend upon you in enclosed spaces, but (mostly) fair checkpoints make these battles much easier to take and eventually triumph over.Getting around is easy at first, but as the game progresses, the challenges get intense.
Thanks to the two dimensions of the worlds, there are areas that can only be seen and touched in one or the other. This, in turn, requires very quick hands in order to execute perfectly timed double-jumps tied to special moves while changing dimensions all at the same time. As you advance to the late stages of Guacamelee!, there are a few that feel almost impossible; but after finding the exact combination of special abilities needed to progress, the sense of reward is empowering.Therein lies the biggest-and, really, only-issue with Guacamelee! There are several intense difficulty spikes that turn a delightful experience into a temporarily frustrating one, especially in certain platforming spots.
While there are dozens of tough combat battles, those almost always feel fair; it’s simply a matter of figuring out the specific way to defeat enemies in the best order and then move on. While difficulty balance is always a tough thing to nail, Guacamelee!
Could have used a few simple hints to let players know how to approach certain situations without letting them flail around for 15 minutes in vain.' It may be too much to handle for casual gamers.' Sometimes, the best thing to do is simply put the game down and cool off for a few minutes. Luckily, Guacamelee! Offers cross-buy and cross-save between the PS3 and Vita, so when you’re standing in the shower thinking about a particularly vexing spot and have a “eureka” moment, you can simply grab the Vita to test out your theory. Looks, sounds, and controls beautifully on both systems, so picking which one to play at any moment is more about convenience than anything else. You can’t go wrong with either.When you put together a little Metroid, Castlevania, Super Mario, and Mutant Blobs Attack!
Then immerse it in Mexican folklore, you get Guacamelee! A meaty experience with terrific combat, lovely visuals, and a smart sense of humor, it scratches an itch that’s being ignored more often than not these days. Despite some frustrating moments and difficulty spikes, it’s a terrific game for PlayStation Network gamers looking for something both familiar and different.This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 3 and PS Vita.
Do you ever have that feeling where you just want to take off your shirt, put on your mask and start wrestling people? No? Just me? Well I played a game this past week where you don’t get that choice. Drinkbox Studios from Toronto has created an action packed game in their luchador simulator Guacamelee!. Well it isn’t so much of a luchador simulator as more of a 2-d platforming brawler with style oozing from every orifice.
Guacamelee! is inspired by Mexican folklore, set between the worlds of the living and the dead. Players take control of a downtrodden agave farmer named Juan Aguacate who has to fight through hordes of undead enemies to stop the evil Carlos Calaca from gaining ultimate power by sacrificing the beautiful 'El Presidente's Daughter.” Once you finish the short tutorial, the female luchador Tostada can join in as your tag team partner for co-op play at any time throughout the game.
Set in and around a small village in Mexico, Guacamelee! has players punch, suplex, and pile drive enemies into a pulp, while travelling through alternate dimensions. Guacamelee! expands upon many classic games by blurring the boundaries between combat and platforming, making many of the moves necessary to use for both of these.
Guacamelee! pays homage to many other games, referencing every game it can through winks and nods throughout the environment. Drinkbox actually describes Guacamelee! as a Metroid style game, heck it even features Chozo statues to unlock your powers. The 2d game world is entirely open-ended and chock full of secrets and areas that are inaccessible until you have the proper abilities and equipment. In this case, Juan and Tostada inherit fighting moves from a mystical goat that benefit them in both battle and exploration. Who doesn’t want to use a ‘rooster uppercut’ to open both a doorway and an enemy’s skull?
The combat in Guacamelee! gradually builds your arsenal of wrestling moves throughout the game. The initially bland set of punches and kicks you start out with eventually give way to more specialized moves like ground pounds and suplexes. These can be mixed together for some impressively complex combos especially when you toss enemies back and forth between co-op partners. Taking things one step further, Guacamelee! throws in enemies that can only be defeated with a certain colour coded-attack, making for some interesting brawls. The game doesn’t scale at all, so co-op play makes the combat much easier with a friend.
Battles leave with you coins to purchase new skills while you will need to find hearts and gold to upgrade your health and stamina. All three currencies are the primary rewards for exploration and the game world is filled with hidden treasure chests in what regularly seem to be impossible-to-reach areas.