A Hole New World is the first work of the boys of MadGearGames and it is a very good 2D platformer of clear Nintendian inspiration able to give the player half a dozen hours of fun between jumps, enemies and bossfights worthy of the old school. Quietly ignorable are the flaws that the game presents as long as you know how to come to terms with some remnants of the never too late 80's.
Eighties look, gameplay worthy of the new millennium!
The gameplay is heavily inspired by platformers like Shovel Knight or the eldest Ducktales, the difficulty is at levels worthy of the first Ninja Gaiden and it will certainly cause some bile spills to those who are still convinced of the enormous difficulty of From Software's most famous series. You jump, attack by throwing potions and acquire new skills after each bossfight; the latter can be summarized in new mixtures for their potions or in movement skills able to improve the quality of the gameplay.
It will lead to potions that shoot columns of light, bouncing shots, double jumps animated in a painstaking way that look like they came out of Simphony Of The Night, powerslides on the ground capable of clearing walkways full of enemies and flying kicks able to remember the mechanics based on pogo on the head of the enemies worthy of the two aforementioned platformers.
A game that seems to follow a script already written by illustrious ancestors, but using a little trick: the developers have written half of the script overturning every single letter.
The new world that heads in the title is present in the plot as the reverse world from which the amenities to fight emerge; in the game it is the protagonist of whole mechanics within a gameplay that seemed to have already said everything in the definition "shovel knight without shovel".
The whole game has a strong duality of settings, it will be necessary several times to go through this curious upside-down in which gravity is reversed and it will be necessary to deal with relearning from scratch where the right and left are; the sense of disorientation is strong but passes after the first or second death without too many problems.
Goodbye dear infinite abysses, welcome world to the contrary.
The game therefore abandons, almost completely, the concept of bottomless pit so dear to the no longer the most famous español plumber in the media to add a whole new game world.
The strokes with inverted gravity they will not always be obligatory to continue the title, they will often simply hide objects and trinkets useful for reaching the highest score for the end of the level. Fighting with the opponents of the case will be quite intuitive and thanks to the possibility of throwing our potions also along the vertical axis we will avoid jumping left and right in an attempt to kill the classic bat.
Some weapons attack enemies off-screen while others freeze them, transforming them into momentary platforms capable of simplifying that jump that seemed impossible two seconds before.
The game has a score that we will increase by collecting gems and killing enemies. When our life energy runs out we will be revived by consuming a precious life. Once they are finished we will be revived at the nearest checkpoint according to our will. The game also features NPCs to find e collectable to be recovered in the darkest meanders of the levels.
In the choice of monsters there is a certain love for i Castlevania more classic, with bats and anthropomorphic beings of all kinds accompanied by more complicated enemies such as giant worms or two-dimensional representations of the grim reaper (whose animation in case of victory is beautiful among other things)
Not only the eye wants its part.
A Hole New World unfortunately presents a sound sector of not excellent quality, the music lasts too short and does not have the quid of the titles that inspire it. No piece is as memorable as any track from the Shovel Knight soundtrack or any Castlevania for the NES. The sound effects are without neither infamy nor praise, they fulfill their task without leaving anything to the player.
On a visual level, however, the game shines thanks to the well-made pixel art and the artistic direction capable of glimpses not bad. For example, an entire level is set in a building infested with a living creature. In a huge room, at a certain point, it will be necessary to face a large amount of enemies having in the background a huge beastly heart that beats giving a quality atmosphere.
The protagonist, despite his almost total anonymity at the plot level, is visually well characterized and remains perfectly pleasant.
The game has options two interesting goodies: a crt filter able to emulate in a beautiful way how the game would be seen on a cathode ray tube TV and a series of options to facilitate the speedrunning of the title, showing statistics and timing of the run on the screen.
The art of ragequit.
Unfortunately the game presents peaks of difficulty notable due to a level design not always at the state of the art. There are enemies that cannot be defeated that can send you to the asylum without too much trouble when combined with inverted gravity and spikes of all kinds and kinds. Furthermore, the bossfight mentioned at the beginning of the article is really able to represent a stop for the less savvy players due to little recognizable patterns and sometimes fallacious hitboxes, things that in a game of this kind are enormously out of tune.
No chance to simplify the challenge since does not exist an easy difficulty, there is no such thing that can lighten the load of enemies or that can increase the amount of energy at our disposal.
Either you get better or you die in short.
In conclusion.
In Hole New World, if you do not uninstall it in the throes of a murderous rampage, it first lasts from four to six hours without taking all the collectibles, closing exactly where it wanted and giving not a few satisfactions in its development. In any case, it is possible to continue the game with the new game plus, wave mode or the boss rush in an effort to get the alternate endings.
Di A Hole New World I will always remember one of the most nerve-wracking and heartbreaking bossfights I've ever had in my entire life, I will always remember the over sixty "continuous" thrown over the course of a couple of hours of play dosed on two different days of the week in the attempt to throw down a cursed black knight who made me reconsider and analyze fifty thousand times the concept of hit box and patience.
Of this game, however, I will continue to rethink that one bossfight, to his rider with some perfect hitboxes and other rough ones; to the background music that unfortunately let itself be ignored with too much simplicity, especially due to the perpetually heart-pounding situation; I will think back to the marvelous control system, literally perfect, misled by an infamous knockback that could have easily remained in the 90's.
A skilful mixture of old and new elements, seasoned with winks to the world of nostalgics and runners; A Hole New World represents a product of sure quality, demonstrating how the saying "winning team does not change" has a certain foundation of truth.
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