Luckily, death isn’t really penalized at all, and you can even hold down a button to kill yourself if you want to teleport to your last marked checkpoint, but this gets a bit iffy in the cooperative multiplayer mode, as where it might teleport you after a death isn’t as clear as the last checkpoint flag, the game sometimes putting you beside your partner or placing you in some strange spot between the flag and where you died with very little way to figure out where you’ll end up. More interesting than your attack weapons though are probably the ones that can help with the platforming, such as suction cup darts you can use to make platforms or even the acid bubble serving as a potential third jump if you land on top of it rather than being dissolved by approaching it head first.Īnd platforming help can definitely be desired, as the levels in BattleBlock Theater can push you to be precise, quick, and rapidly go from one challenge to another while trying to avoid death, although the game will also give you some reprieve between a level’s obstacles to figure out how to go ahead. You have some punches that can handle them, but you also get to enter levels with a weapon, some of these as simple as a thrown explosive while others may freeze enemies, blow them up with walking frogs, or dissolve them with an acid bubble. Sliding, phasing through platforms, and grabbing and moving objects aren’t exactly revolutionary ideas for a character’s capabilities, but you do have a few offensive options to handle the cats who are on stage with you trying to kill you or keep you from clearing hazards. Your skill set is deceptively simple but ever-growing, the player having a double jump to handle the jumping with but there are many ways to interact with the environment as the game goes on. Each level is in essence once big box that is filled in with different environmental pieces, but despite this the areas still can have distinct structural identities, partly because the box can be bigger or smaller as need be and the platforms within can reshape it to make it feel less like you are on a stage performing for cats who just want to see you die. The game’s silliness certainly creates a strong style and tone, but the platforming is actually focused pretty well on providing tightly designed challenges that can become quite demanding of your skills. There are a few small developments as you clear the challenges, but it’s definitely not a game aiming to form a coherent strong narrative, instead happy to be goofy at every turn. A ship full of an abnormally high amount of mutual friends ends up on an island where some chubby cats take the people prisoner and make them perform deadly platform challenges for their amusement, all while “the best friend” of the group Hatty Hattington is corrupted by, appropriately enough, a hat to design these challenges for you. The ridiculousness of the narrator isn’t even keeping you from much a plot either. The narrator isn’t just there for the scenes either, popping up during gameplay to continue to deliver quirky and comedic lines in reaction to your activity as well as sometimes singing the backing music himself, and while there is an option to reduce his commentary or even turn it off, you’d be shutting out one of the game’s most enjoyable aesthetic charms. When it comes time for the narrator to do a scene, he explains the events almost like a child who’s too excited to tell you a story, going off on weird tangents, tripping over words, focusing on strange elements, and getting distracted by the jokes being told to the point the plot can be completely forgotten for a bit as we explore the silly new idea brought up. The cutscenes of the game are entirely carried by one man explaining the events, but rather than that being a dry form of exposition, the narrator is such an energetic and goofy character that they might be the highlights of an already solid platforming experience. You can tell the creators of BattleBlock Theater had a blast making it, and most of that comes down to the utterly ridiculous narrator featured in the game.
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