Updated:
VVVVVV… that's 6 V's. This game took the spot of Metal Gear Solid this week, which I wasn't in the mood to play (by which I mean I didn't feel like setting up my PS3 (also I make the rules (I can nest as many parenthesis as I want okay))) and it was actually a refreshing break from some of the longer, story heavy games I've been playing.
That is not to say that V^6 doesn't have any story. You are the captain of a spaceship, and after disaster strikes, it becomes your mission to rescue your 5 fellow crewmates and repair your ship. Your crewmates are scattered around the map, but because it's not very big, I didn't have any trouble finding everyone. The entire game I suppose could be described as not that big, and I think that is one of it's strengths. You open up the map by basic exploration or interacting with various monitors spread around, and you also discover teleporters that make travelling back to certain areas very easy.
As for graphics, this game is pretty basic, but it works. The focus is on the gameplay, and the major mechanic there is that this is a platformer in which you can't jump. At least, not in the traditional sense. You can only invert yourself. Think of it more like you're switching gravity so that you fall up. Each puzzle room also has a title at the bottom which sometimes can be simple clues or puns, but eventually become more abstract phrases. My favorite was "I'm sorry" followed by "Please forgive me." My first time through them I thought to myself that they weren't so bad, but the title made me go back and see if there was a different, more difficult way through. Sure enough, there was.
Finally, like I was saying earlier, I think one of the great things about this game was that I did beat it in under 5 hours, and I feel like I completed everything that I could complete to my skill level. Yes, this is the first game I completed doing this project! The gimmick never got old, and the few new mechanics introduced on the way weren't over used. I didn't feel like I was doing the same puzzle over and over again. The challenge of the puzzles also hit a sweet spot in that there was really only one I didn't complete, outside of the optional collection items, and I had Yavuz beat for me. I'm not ashamed, it was one of the escort missions and I think I got to a point where my frustration was getting the better of me.
I really enjoyed V's music as well, it had a good retro feel to it. The music never got annoying, which is important in a game where you die over and over again and need to retry things constantly.
So overall, I loved this game. It was short and sweet and I actually would replay this, but not for the achievements, because those mostly involve not dying, and forget that.
To those interested, here are some of my final stats:
- Total flips: 5241
- Total deaths: 1405
- Most deaths in one room: 116
-Caitlyn
PS - I want to add that VVVVVV has a plethora of accessibility options, which always makes me happy to see. I myself turned off the backgrounds, pretty as they were, they started to make me feel disoriented. I always find it commendable that some small indie game developers think so much more about accessibility than big studios do, but I guess that's just the way it goes.
PPS - This game was made by the same guy who made Dicey Dungeons.
