I have played many platformers in the past... almost a decade. Ranging from Konami rehashed tripe to indie nostalgia nonsense. Of ALL of them, from NSMB Wii down to Bunny Must Die up to MM10 down to Shift and back again, VVVVVV is by miles the one I would recommend most heartily. The ONLY platformer I would pause for a SECOND before declaring VVVVVV better than it would be Cave Story. It is inspired, clever, paced exceptionally well, challenging, but not ball-busting... every level is designed quite well. It uses it's gimmick better than a thousand other gimmick platformers.
I cannot say enough good things about VVVVVV except that it was only like 2 hours long. But it was 2 hours long because it packed everything so tightly. Checkpoints are doled out like candy. There's no long slogs back and forth across a map, no tedious item grinding, no bosses with health bars about six times to long (Kinda sad that there are no REAL bosses period but there are a couple of levels I would count as "bosses"...), it just piles on the game and burns out quick as a result.
I absolutely cannot say enough nice things about VVVVVV. It's one of those games that I think if you can't spare the $5 you should at least pirate it just to have beaten it.
Well, I CAN say one bad thing about the game:
ING VENI VIDI VICI. Still, it's only one collectible.
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