![]() While there’s definitely still some of that feeling in LUNARK, things feel more responsive overall, giving you a much greater sense of control. Previous cinematic platformers could be extremely brutal in terms of controls, with characters behind a slave to animations rather than input, leaving you facing multiple unfair deaths. Little quality of life adjustments are present, such as your character being able to climb platforms above you without the need to turn them left/right, and start/stop animations being a lot more forgiving. The game manages to stay close to the feeling of cinematic platformers of yesterday, but with enough minor tweaks to remove a healthy amount of the frustration.Ĭontrols for LUNARK will instantly feel familiar to cinematic platformer aficionados, but refreshed for some considerable improvements. This is where LUNARK really manages to succeed in my eyes. That said, fans of the genre may also conjure up ideas of stilted controls, unfair deaths and sluggish response time. Everything you’d expect from the genre is here environmental platforming puzzles, death-defying leaps, back-and-forth enemy battles, and so on. If you’re familiar with cinematic platformers, you’d instantly peg LUNARK as one with just a quick glimpse of gameplay. Thankfully, after some lengthy hands-on with the title, I can say LUNARK seems to be worthy of standing alongside the titans of the genre. Of course, just being inspired by the classics doesn’t mean a new title will be worthy of your time. These inspirations are worn on LUNARK’s sleeve, as fans of the genre will no doubt instantly recognize the DNA of titles like Flashback and Out of This World/Another World at work. LUNARK, created by Johan Vinet and published by WayForward, is without a doubt inspired by the all-time greats of cinematic platforming. That brings us all the way up to 2023 and LUNARK. The genre isn’t anywhere near as popular as it once was, which means I’m always on the hunt for the next game that fits the bill. Now here I am 40+ years old, and I’ve played through pretty much every cinematic platformer there is. With each cinematic platformer I gobbled up, I felt my love of the genre grow. I went back and tackled the games I had missed (Prince of Persia), and quickly snatched up new releases as well (Flashback, Blackthorne, Oddworld, ect.). Out of This World/Another World pushed me to explore the cinematic platformer genre. Playing that game stirred something within me that is very much alive and well to this day. Every movement was calculated, every interaction was unique, and an amazing story was presented with mystery and intrigue. Cinematic platformers certainly had mechanics I was mostly familiar with, but presented them in a whole new fashion. Up to that point, I had largely played standard platformers where the story was light and the action was fast-paced. It all started with Out of This World/Another World on the SNES, which opened my 10-year-old eyes to the greater possibilities of gaming. I’ve had a connection to the cinematic platformer genre from an extremely early age.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |