Concursion is a 2d Side Scrolling Platformer in every sense of those words. Here is how the game play would be described as if it was a school yard commodity:
Want to try some nostalgia 2% milk boxes? Just in from the School Lunch black market. Also, I have some Cheetos dust. Poofy, not crunchy, that’s for scabs.
The bread and butter of the game is the fact that you shift between characters. Each character has it’s own shtick… I couldn’t find a better word. Almost as if the creator was dreaming of 5 different games being played all at one time. The best example is on one level you have to go through as a sprinter that just has speed into an astronaut that can’t run, but they do have a booster to fly in the no gravity environment. Add in a little Pac-Man type gameplay and a samurai, dodging other ninjas while wall jumping, and you have the best 2% cardboard goodness you remember from your youth.
Downfalls aren’t really downfalls, they are more of what should be called: Short Comings. As in the game feels short. 32 levels to be exact. The time attack only adds a small reason to play again. The story doesn’t remain in the realm relevant as far as game play necessity is concerned. As a person who loves the challenge, I find that most the times, bosses just seem to happen. They dialogue and then I run jump etc.
As far as the games core, it’s basically stuck in 16:9 ratio, not fitting weird monitor proportions and it hates being forced into full screen. The other issue is the fact that you can’t use the mouse on the opening screen or the natural button scheme to control the regular menus, you are forced to the game controls. The last issue that really had me frustrated was the inability to go back to the main screen without closing the game making it feel more like a mobile game mentality.
This game has a super fun atmosphere mostly massaged into place by the soundtrack. The controls are very beautiful for a PC game. Unlike it’s cohorts, The Rayman Series and Bit.Trip Runner Series, Concursion doesn’t use rhythm as part of it’s mechanisms… but it should. Simply delighting in the fact that you run and slice with one of 5 characters through a level, quickly changing based on the atmosphere.
The challenge added is that the enemies change with the environment as well. This addition will allow for the challenges that most of the 2-d Speed Running community craves, adding the replayability challenge of time records and collectibles per level. This has all of the makings of one of those games that is worth its small amount of money on the PC, but could possibly be better suited for tablets and mobile devices in the future.