Lasers can be redirected with angled blocks, portals open up around the map for insane coverage and multiple cycles through arenas, and the powerup that turns you into a diagonally-focussed fireball gets you hunted down by spikey death-orbs. Every world has its main themed mechanic that is gently built upon throughout but, as mentioned, the Lost Levels is what takes them above and beyond. Standard threats consist of timed explosives that can set off chain reactions, moving laser beams, blocks that are hell-bent on squishing you as you pass by, and sets of drones that need to be destroyed to open doors, to name a few. On top of that, completing the story unlocks the best part of the game, an extra ‘Lost Levels’ chapter that throws the player into special stages covering each of the mainline chapters’ unique mechanics but with incredible new twists on them. People drawn in by the common comparison to Celeste will recognise these as ‘strawberries’ – bonus items that pose a deeper test of your skills to grab. It’s set over six chapters, each one consisting of their normal story mode and an advanced hard mode unlocked by collecting all of the extra-challenge presenting ‘data cubes’ spread throughout the levels. You can’t let the game win! And Sunblaze walks that line very well. A little frustration is par for the course in games like this, though. They play like a delay check rather than interesting problems. It’s common for timing to be a big part of platformers but here, because almost every block you stand on falls, there’s no real way to circumnavigate these problems without simply waiting X seconds before trying again each respawn. Mix that with some of the more annoying traps, that are timing-based instead of execution, and it can sometimes get quite frustrating. The problem is specifically when needing to gun it and not knowing how you’ll land, making some sections feel imprecise and a little random. Getting the hang of ledge-grabbing from long jumps or falls is tricky at first but it’s absolutely necessary to master for late-game areas. It’s so fiddly! It’s often a total guess at whether you’re going to make a high jump on your feet, almost make it and wall-slide down until you hit the ledge, or grab the ledge right away and clamber up. Something else to note is that Josie can hang from ledges and then pull herself up slowly from that position, which I grew to hate. These tools are all the player is given for the entire game, only the obstacles change. The player can move, jump, double-jump (albeit this is not a full extra jump in terms of height/distance), and dash once horizontally, recovering it upon landing or via special level mechanics. Besides the odd amusing interaction between the protagonist, her father, and a friendly AI she meets on the inside that takes the form of a floating chibi unicorn, nothing makes an impact. Oh, yeah, and if you die in the sim you die in real life – duh! Much like a classic Asimov story, this not-so-well-defined task means the machine will forever build harder and harder trials to push Sunblaze, Josie’s given hero name, to her limits and beyond. You play as Josie, the daughter of a superhero, who gets accidentally trapped in a virtual reality training simulator run by an all-knowing AI with one goal – create the perfect superhero. I just worry that it won’t get the attention it deserves because it is a good game brilliant, even, at times. It’s actually kind of refreshing to see a title build on a simple and solid foundation without resorting to needless hooks (which, oddly enough, are, more often than not, hook-shots). It’s a 2D puzzle platformer with the only really ‘different’ thing about it being that each of its many, many stages are all presented on a single non-scrolling screen, limiting their scope (but certainly not their complexity). It’s not so easy to sell anybody on the elevator pitch for Sunblaze.
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