Henry Hatsworth nicely mixes old-school platforming with fresh gameplay mechanics
As the game's title says Henry Hatsworth brings a mix of puzzle and adventure, while both had already been combined on games like Zelda and even other platformers no game did it like this one. On the upper screen you will take control of Henry, a British gentleman that destroy enemies by using a cane and a gun while on the bottom screen a Tetris-like puzzle game will take place.
The relation between both screens is rather simple. Enemies that get killed on the upper screen aren't completely dead, as they remain alive on what the game calls the "puzzle realm". In order to fully beat them you need to take care of their poor souls that flee and posses a puzzle block on the bottom puzzle screen.
The bottom screen is composed by tons of blocks on different colors. All you need to do is press the x-button and the action of the game will switch between the screens. Use your stylus to drag blocks horizontally and join three blocks of the same color, after that those blocks will disappear.
The developers made sure players would have to utilize both screens, making the puzzling and platforming compelling and extremely fun. The puzzle blocks move upwards so if a block possessed by an enemy reaches the top screen it will try to smash Henry, and given the difficulty of the game and the enemy-ridden screens this is not good at all, as an enemy returning to haunt you will usually mean game over.
The power-ups and 1-ups of the game also get moved to the puzzle realm once you collect them on the platforming sections, and you will only be able to activate them if you get rid of their blocks on the bottom screen.
The puzzle screen has one meter on each of its corners. One representing the time you can spend on the puzzle, and the other the special power your character has. The former fills gradually as you play while the latter is filled by producing combos, activating power-ups, destroying enemy blocks or simply getting rid of regular blocks. You can use the special power to either fire projectiles or transform into a powerful robot to pound enemies when the meter is totally filled.
Robots and elder gentleman don't match, but that is all a part of the game's over the top presentation. It all starts with the rather strange storyline that involves a treasure realm that has been opened freeing tons of monsters, and a golden gentlemen suit that needs to be collected to close the portal joining both dimensions.
Besides the game is filled with very humorous dialogue, that is made even funnier by the mumbling voice of the characters, which was obviously inspired by Banjo-Kazooie's quirky character voices. Henry soon finds out that his rival is also after the different suit pieces and so the quest becomes more intense and some funny situations happen along the way with Henry having great exchanges with his rival or having to deal with strange bosses summoned by the other gentleman.
With all that being said the game still has plenty of flaws. The game is divided in five worlds each one with 5 stages, one boss battle and other two secret stages that can be unlocked by finding secret exits on the best Super Mario World fashion. However the levels are slightly repetitive as their scenarios don't present really big changes and their concept is basically the same as you will be jumping on platforms and battling carefully placed enemies with little surprises or variations along the way.
Enemy variety is also lacking, by the time you reach the fourth world you will have faced around ten types of different foes which is too little. Some enemies are very creative as once they transform into blocks they will have different effects on the lower screen either making it move faster, becoming oversized unmovable blocks or transforming into blocks with high stamina that need to be involved in two combos to be destroyed. But I felt like this could have been used more often as there aren't many different enemies in the game.
The bosses however not only present a major challenge but are overflowing with creativity and great attacks. Bosses are extremely tough, which is no surprise given the game's unusual extreme difficulty and they have a nice range of attacks. Beating them will usually require good management on both the upper and bottom screen of the game.
The game is very tough, even people who have beaten old-school tough platformers like Mega Man 2 will have a hard time here because the game gets hard way too fast. By the time the first boss is reached you will start seeing how hard the game can be, and things only get harder from then on. This is very good due to the lack of challenging games nowadays but an option for the difficulty could have been nice as players will certainly be unhappy by getting killed all the time and having to restart some levels all over again.
Overall Henry Hatsworth is a good game. It deserves a lot of praise for its originality on mixing different gameplays on a very successful way by making both the puzzle and platform sections extremely solid and compelling. But it is undeniable that the game has some issues that could have been avoided. The game has good visuals, hordes of enemies, great replay value due to the secret exits and weapon upgrades that can be acquired by collecting treasure and an amazing soundtrack. Platform fans will certainly be delighted.
Actual Score: 8.1