VVVVVVeni, Vidi, Vici
I had been anticipating VVVVVV ever since I saw the trailer on TIGSource, so naturally I was excited when it was finally released some two weeks ago. Busy me had no time to play it until a few days ago, though.
I got the demo, played it through、 and loved it. So I bought the full game.
Getting the trinket here is not as simple as it seems.
There have been complaints about the price tag ($15), but let me tell you just now; VVVVVV is bloody well the best platformer (nay, game) I have played since Super Mario Bros. 3 – and that is saying a lot, coming from me.
Everything about the game just screams “video game” (in the 1980’s meaning of the word); it’s difficult, it’s fun, it’s difficult, it’s new, it’s difficult, it’s enjoyable. Did I mention it’s difficult? Sure, I got through the game (with 21/20 trinkets) in a little over three hours, but this genre (hardcore platformery) is perhaps the genre I am most experienced in.
Few will find this place.
VVVVVV is a platformer with very, very simple controls; Arrows move you left and right, and space inverts your gravity. That is it, no powerups, no locked areas. The only thing separating you and the win is your skills – and spikes. Lots and lots of spikes.
The game is split into a plethora of rooms, each its own puzzle (although quite often, rooms combine to form more intricate puzzles). Every room that is not part of the overworld is named – and most room names are outright genius. Some make you think, some make you sigh, most make you smile. Sometimes the room names are telling a story. As with puzzles, the room names usually combine as well; “I love you / That’s why I have to kill you” or “If you fall up / Just pick yourself down”, for example.
I had a hard time doing some of the various insane (yet completely optional) rooms; While the Veni, Vidi, Vici series of rooms is a much-discussed topic on the intertubes, I personally had nearly just as much trouble with the single room “lovingly” called Edge Games. Whatever is needed to get those trinkets, right?
Edge Games.
Luckily, checkpoints are generously spread throughout the game, so there is hardly no delay retrying the same room over and over. This helps make the entire three hour gameplay much more intense – concise cutscenes, almost no backtracking (unless you want those trinkets that you didn’t get the first time around), and instant respawn. The difficulty is in the rooms themselves, not in how they are presented. This, in my opinion, is the proper way to challenge players.
This is me showing off.
Of course, I can hardly describe VVVVVV without mentioning its well-executed retro look and feel; The characters, rooms, backgrounds, music (oh, the music!) and sounds all work together to present a game that would have played exactly the same on a C64 – In fact, I wish I could play it on mine.
Imagine if VVVVVV had been released in the eighties. Terry Cavanagh (the developer) would have been a household name.
I love VVVVVV.