La Furia de un Cojo Pollo!: A Video Game Review of Guacamelee!

      A few days ago I saw the trailer to The Book of Life, an animated movie designed around the theme of the Mexican holiday, The Day of the Dead. After seeing that trailer, I reminisced about Luchadors and day of the dead celebrations we had during Spanish classes. While in that swing of things I found the game Guacamelee!. It is an action platformer developed and published by DrinkBox Studios, all centered around Mexican culture. I had heard of this game for the longest time from my friends, saying that the game was amazing and fun! I believed and dived right in, and boy was I unprepared for what was to come.

Story:
    The story opens up with Juan, an agave farmer woken up by the friar of his town, to come help him at the church. It is time for the Day of the Dead festival, and preparations are being made. When Juan arrives at the church, he sees his old friend, and love interest for the story, El Presidente's Daughter. She says she's impressed as how he has "grown" and would love to see him again, and leaves. A few moments later however the town comes under attack by the undead, lead by Carlos Calaca, ruler of the land of the dead, and his lieutenants, X'Tabay,his emotional supernatural powered girlfriend, and Flame Face, a reincarnated flame headed arsonist. After challenging Calaca, Juan is easily killed by the lord of the dead, but awakes in the Land of the Dead. He soon sees a glowing blue Luchador mask, and meets its guardian, Tostada, who is the second player character, and claims that he is The Chosen Juan(yes, I groaned at my own pun too, moving on). Juan puts on the mask and becomes a Luchador, and with his new power, he will fight the forces of Calaca and save his beloved.
    So clearly we have heard of this story before a LOT of times. Pretty Royal gets kidnapped by All Powerful Evil Ruler, and its up to a Lower Class Hero to save them. It's a tale told as video games go. I'm the guy who likes a good story, packed with characters and settings, with a good backstory put in. However though the story is a cookie cutter of most platformers, the formula still works for what it does, and I respect that.

 Gameplay    Where the game lacks in deepness to story, it makes up for it in the other two categories. Gameplay is reminiscent to the olden days of Metroid and Castlevania. As the Luchador, you use wrestling moves to take down the undead hordes of Calaca's Army. You find statues throughout the game that you break and you will learn a new move from an ancient Mayan master. The first you learn is a fiery red uppercut, which doubles as your double jump for certain platforming bits, then you get a mighty green belly flop, then a destructive yellow headbutt, and finally an all powerful blue punch. You notice how I labelled each of these moves with their respective colors. That is because one other important factor about combat is that certain enemies have shields on them, that can only be destroyed by the moves of their respective color. This added definite challenge to the combat, deciding what shield you should break first, especially with the larger groups of enemies. You can also change different costumes to have different effects, such as the Chicken Suit, which gives you more health, but slows your abilities recharge.

    Another major factor in gameplay is your ability to switch from the land of the living to the land of the dead. You get this after you beat the first boss, and it will be essential for future parts of the game. Using the ability, you access other areas that you couldn't;t in the other. For example, If a wall is there in the land of the living, it might not be there in the land of the dead. This also plays into combat. Sometimes you will see an enemy blacked out, or whited out if you are in the land of the dead. That means those enemies are in the other world, which means to combat them, you have to constantly switch between the worlds. This idea is cool, making you think on the ball on how to fight the undead armies. 

    However, what seems great in combat, sometimes doesn't add up in the platforming. The realm system also takes part in the platforming sections of the game, where you need to trust that you can make it to a platform, just to change so you don't hit a wall. The game was originally released on the PS3, so making the conversion over to a keyboard can be quite difficult. I found the controls were fine up to the point of when you needed to time the realm shifts where it kicked it up a notch in difficult platforming. If one pixel of your body is in the wall, you instantly switch back into the previous world, making you fall all the way back down to the beginning of your jumping puzzle. It has proven to have become tedious over time, and I found myself walking away for a while because of rage. Some may call it unfair that I am judging the keyboard controls to a game made for the consoles, but if your going yo put it on a PC or Mac, be prepared to make it FOR a PC and Mac.

Art:

    The art style to this game is unique within itself. The game is full of vibrant colors you would see in, no surprise, A Day of the Dead celebration. I was amazed by the designs and colors, sending off vibes of the culture within itself. You can definitely feel the vibes of the day of the dead in the villain Calaca. He is by far one of my favorite designs for a villain, despite him being a stereotypical one. His skull has the markings of a Day of the Dead Skull, and with a flowing black cape, this Charro from the other side has become instantly recognizable. You have hundreds of thousands of easter eggs, given a nice Mexican twist. scattered throughout the worlds from games of the past such as Mario and Castle Crashers. My personal favorite came in the forms of wrestling posters in the background such as Mega Hombre vs. Le Mascara. On one last minor note about the art, for some reason, there is a theme of chickens also found throughout the game, though it's not a problem, I just find it humorous as my character punched and threw chickens in a chicken suit.

Final Verdict:

    This game was quite fun, despite it's hiccups, even its major ones. The game itself is a Spanish take on an old formula when it comes to story, but its an old formula that I still feel can be held up to this day. The art really brings out the theme of this world, and the design of it's villain will definitely be sticking out in my mind whenever I think of a diabolical villain. I stand by what I say about controllers for a PC, but overall it is a fun combat system, with some very interesting gameplay mechanics. I would recommend this game to some, but not to others, not on PC anyway.

7.5/10

Bastante Bueno!

Poster by NeoMonki

    I heard it is coming to the PS4 later this year, so I will be getting it so I can see if it really is easier to play on a controller over a keyboard. So what did you think of Guacamelee? What did you think of this review? Comment below and I hope you come back for more!