Don't let the basic art style fool you, under the hood there's a very deep and fun game to be had here
Graphics
The art style at work here doesn't seem to be anything ground breaking, but after a while I was appreciating all of the character designs and animation. The backgrounds have a kind of cartoony look about them and it all fits together nicely to create this great world.
Sound
Although there is no voicing in this game to speak of (it's all text based), the sounds of the fighting and even something simple like the goat (who you'll interact with a lot) walking along all have a very crisp sound, especially though headphones.
Gameplay
I haven't given a very detailed explanation on the above 2 areas and the reason for this is it's the gameplay in Guacamelee that you'll play this game for. What seems like a very simple game has a very deep fighting and exploratory system.
The story is one we've all seen before, some evil guy (in this case its someone from the undead world) kidnaps your wife and you somehow get transformed into a luchador to seek your revenge. It's a paper thin story but one that sets up a great adventure.
The first thing you'll start to play around with is the fighting. On the surface this all seems quite a simple system but as you progress and get given new moves, this turns into a very deep and exciting system and one that you'll enjoy using to face many enemies to get a high combo count.
The other brilliant mechanic in this game is the ability to switch between the living world and the undead world. At first this is done through various portals but as you move through the game and get given the power to switch between these worlds at will, this sets up and intriguing system, one that adds to both the fighting and puzzle elements of this game. For instance, you may be faced with 4 enemies but 2 are in the undead world, so you're unable to fight them in the living world, however they can still attack you. This means that you have to juggle between worlds to fight all 4 enemies. Not only that but platforms and walls also appear and disappear when switch between worlds, so to get from point A to point B may involve in some rather tricky maneuvering.
The game can take between 6-7 hours to complete if you just play through the main story and don't divert. This is the course I chose and now the game is finished, I'm backtracking and doing the various side quests and exploring. So far I've put almost 13 hours into this game and I'm still not bored. In fact the game does encourage you to back track as some areas wouldn't have been accessible to you at the beginning because it required a special power, which you'll get later in the game.
On the back of finishing Sly Cooper which, let's face it didn't offer much of a challenge, to now playing this, it's obvious that these were games designed on the opposite side of the scale. This game can offer quite a bit of a challenge, either on the platforming areas or the fighting. I had spent about 30-40 minutes on the last boss fight but because the fighting system is so good and each time you attempt to win, you get that little bit closer, you don't feel at any stage that it's an impossible task. This is a good balance between creating a tough challenge and not making the game frustrating. It always offers you that glimmer of hope if you just have one more go.
That's not to say that there were no frustrating elements to this game. During my exploration I had a rather tricky fighting section to complete, I'd drop down into a area and it would lock for me to battle the various enemies. Once they were defeated the area 'unlocked' and I'd drop into the next area and repeat this until I got all the way down to the hidden chest. On top of the challenge this offered, it was made even more frustrating when I'd go through a few of these areas, only to defeat the enemies but the area remained locked. This was obviously a glitch but I had to start the section all over again. This went on for a couple of hours, either I'd die or get locked into an area with no other choice than to restart the game.
Final Thoughts
This is a surprisingly deep game that offers a great challenge either on the platforming or the fighting. To be offered such a challenge and to lose yourself in a game for a dozen hours that only cost $19 is a real bargain. I'd encourage anyone who is looking for something slightly different to play this game, a rare gem.