VVVVVV started off with an interesting twist to platformers where you change gravity instead of jumping and it also included a more interesting story than many platformers have but it got bogged down by what I call trial and error game play. Basically many parts to the game are going to force you to die because you can’t possibly see where the traps are so you are meant to play sections over and over until you memorize it. Now I will give the game credit in that checkpoints are a lot more common than some other platformers but at the same time I despise this mechanic. The soundtrack was decent and the visuals, while simple, were well done and stood out.
I played VVVVVV on Linux. It never crashed on me. The game has many checkpoints but these are just temporary saves for this session and are lost when you quit to the menu. Actual full saves only happen at designated teleporters. This can become annoying if you just want a quick session and also isn’t explained very well in game. The game has a 30 FPS lock. Now this isn’t a game that suffers terribly from such a low frame rate but I see no reason to have the lock on any game. I played using the keyboard as well as using an F310 game pad and both worked well. The game pad was the winner for me as I found my hand got tired quicker using the keyboard.
Game Engine: C++
Game Version Played: 2.2
Save System: Save Stations (checkpoints for current session)
Disk Space Used: 74 MB
CPU Usage: 1-9 %
RAM Usage: 1.4 GB
If it weren’t for the trial and error style game play I think I would have loved VVVVVV but as it stands I didn’t love it, I can’t even say I liked it. If you’re a fan of the style then you’ll probably enjoy it as the rest of the game is well done. I paid $3.29 CAD for the game and can’t say I got my money’s worth but again it will come down to your love for the style.
My Score: 4/10
My System:
Intel I5-4590 | 16GB DDR3-1333 | Intel HD 4600 1536MB | Mesa 20.0.8 | Samsung 850 Evo 250GB | Trisquel 9.0 | Mate 1.20.0 | Kernel 5.4.80-gnu