Games of the week – Helheim Hassle, Scott Pilgrim vs The World: The Game – Complete Edition, Glyph and Oceanhorn: Chronos Dungeon
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Helheim Hassle
Platform: PlayStation (New), Xbox, Switch, PC
Genre: Puzzle / Adventure
Price: £21.99
Side-splitting fun
A pacifist Viking sees himself resurrected many, many years after his unfortunate death to fulfil a task from the mysterious Pesto, in this body-splitting supernatural puzzle platforming adventure. The main component of these puzzles is navigating from A to B, separating your body parts to make it possible – an odd yet entertaining way of taking on the genre, which works. One minute you may need to lose your head to shed some weight and successfully climb a wall, while the next you may need to combine limbs to jump to other areas. The body-manipulation is certainly unique but sometimes the controls can be fiddly and frustrating. The story itself is also pretty solid, and while the humour is well-intentioned, it can feel forced.
Skip to the end: Puzzles become a bodily affair in Helheim Hassle which works perfectly.
Score: 8/10
Scott Pilgrim vs The World: The Game – Complete Edition
Platform: Xbox, PlayStation, Switch, PC
Genre: Beat ’em up / arcade
Price: £11.99
Punching
After suddenly disappearing in 2014 due to a licensing issue, Scott Pilgrim vs The World is back after a push by fans, a decade on from its original release. Based on the comics and movie, you play the titular Scott, a slacker and bass guitar musician. It’s retro, arcade-style take on beat ’em up gaming is welcome, as you confront Ramona Flowers’ evil exes across seven levels, who are hellbent on destroying her love life. Best of all, it’s not about button mashing. To succeed, you actually need to think strategically, timing combos effectively for maximum results. The ability to level up and loot bad guys for coins to buy extras also provides added longevity, but the real fun comes in with co-op mode, having three friends play along with you. You can revive friends and carry out team attacks – though there can be a lot going on on screen.
Skip to the end: Scott Pilgrim brings back the arcade beat ’em up successfully for today’s consoles.
Score: 7/10
Glyph
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Genre: Puzzle / Platformer
Price: £17.99
Gaming zen
Glyph is a bug-like alien creature on a quest to restore an ancient temple city, by completing a series of engaging and progressively challenging levels that stand in your way. Glyph rolls into a ball, enabling you to progress along ever-tight and uneven pathways. At each level at the beginning you learn new skills, adding things like jumping, hoops to recharge your energy mid-air, and brief moments to fly, which ease you into gameplay nicely to the tough traps and enemies. What’s great about Glyph is that you don’t feel under tremendous pressure, thanks in part to the simple yet effective scenery and psychedelic music. Sure, there are tricky moments – but you wouldn’t want it to be easy?
Skip to the end: Addictive entry from Danish indie makers Bolverk Games, which is both challenging while also calming – a rare combination in gaming.
Score: 8/10
Oceanhorn: Chronos Dungeon
Platform: iOS
Genre: Adventure
Price: £4.99 per month with Apple Arcade
Slash, hit, collect, repeat
Tasked with finding the Paradigm Hourglass to restore the world to its former glory before catastrophe, you play as four characters exploring the Chronos Dungeon in this rogue-like dungeon crawler. Set years after the events of Oceanhorn 2: Knights of the Lost Realm, this latest run lacks steam to make it interesting. Exploring room after room, constantly smashing objects to collect coins and slashing down foes as they confront you is not really that inspiring – the enemies are very predictable too, moving in straight lines and making no attempt to challenge you by dodging your attacks. The use of secret passages and the ability to swap between four characters don’t really add much either.
Skip to the end: A rogue-like dungeon crawler lacking anything really new or substantive to draw us in.
Score: 5/10
