izigame.me

I have played Golf Club Nostalgia and enjoyed that game, especially from a narrative perspective, quite a lot. That likely sways my opinion on this a fair bit to the positive (although maybe not as much as I expected). If you are interested in that game I recommend it, the narratives are directly connected and whilst I don't think you need to have played that to enjoy this, it likely enhanced the experience. Obviously being in a different genre completely that's quite possibly not what some people who might be looking at this, a 2D platformer, would like to hear. But I'll try to review it both in it's own right, and as a follow-up (I hesitate to say sequel) to Golf Club Nostalgia.
This was a decent little platformer. Not amazing, although there were elements that came pretty close to amazing, and certainly not consistently enjoyable through-out, since as much as I enjoyed it (and I did a fair bit) there were a couple of sections that really grated on me quite a bit, the mine cart and bison sections being the main contenders. There is a bit of cheep death in this game, no time to react to what's coming and bang, won't get you the second time most likely and the check pointing is pretty tight, but it can be annoying. I don't think it's any where near as much as other reviews have made out, but it is there. Outside of that the platforming is decent, it's responsive enough I never felt like I was fighting the controls and that's along side the generally high quality animation through out (aside from the flight sections where in terms of animation it was a bit lacking in my opinion, played fine though for what it was) that side was quite enjoyable, although also fairly simplistic and shallow. There was some challenge but I certainly would in no way call this a hard game. There are some sections of the game that are genuinely very fun to play through, although for me I found most of those came in the first half and the game felt like it petered off quite a bit in the second half where it all started to fall a bit flat in terms of the gameplay opportunities being presented. If you are just looking for a short platformer to play through, this isn't a bad one, but don't expect it to blow you away. The audio design is excellent through out with a killer soundtrack but let's be honest, whilst that's great, and absolutely part of the experience, as an overall package, that on it's own can't elevate this from being a decent game, but nothing special in my opinion.
As a follow-up to GCN it's ok but I was a little disappointed, not because this is bad but that game, whilst I don't think amazing as a game (it's not bad), nearly brought me to tears with it's story beats by the end. The beloved radio is back, and it's good, but not quite as varied and interesting as it was in that game. More music and due to the change in gameplay I felt like I was missing quite a bit of it through distractions (which is weird to say, distracted from the game by the game, but that's how it felt). The story was fine, it was fun, but I don't think it added much to Charlie's story that struck me so hard in GCN and certainly didn't come close to the emotional resonance I had with that narrative experience.
Not a bad game, certainly a good one, but not a great one. Don't in any way regret buying and playing it and as it's only a few hours long, would certainly not turn other people away from giving it a go if it looks like their cup of tea. It's mostly pretty good and I had some fun with it.