Platformance Castle Pain
Platformance: Castle Pain is a retro-style platformer that takes place on one large level. You can zoom out at any time and see the entire playing field which, is not only a neat trick, but is also useful during the game itself.
The level is littered with things that will kill you. Traps, enemies, blades, fireballs, and bird poop are just some of the things you'll need to avoid to make it to the end. All this makes the game quite tough, with the smallest of errors resulting in your character's death.
With a generous checkpoint system, endless lives and tight controls, you will, with a little perseverance, progress further each time you play until you eventually complete the level.
Death is a common occurrence in Castle Pain, but instant re-spawns keep things from becoming too frustrating.
Beware though, once you get about a quarter of the way through the level, a ghost will begin to slowly follow you and, if he catches up with you, he will make you have to re-start from the beginning.
This is a neat way of countering the fact that you have unlimited lives and keeping the platforming tense and exciting.
Platformace: Castle Pain is a nice looking game, with clear retro styled graphics set in a medieval theme.
It's a lot of fun to play and, though it is quite difficult, it never feels impossible.
It's quite satisfying to get to the end and it keeps a tally of how many times you died and how long you took.
There are no cheap deaths and you always feel that you could do slightly better the next time you play.
All in all it's a somewhat short but very enjoyable game, and, at such a low price, it's certainly worth a try to see if you like it.
Get Platformance Castle Pain on XBox 360
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