Virtual Verve: A Review of VVVVVV

The Steam holiday sales are probably easier on my wallet than other people; to start with, I'm restricted to games that release on OSX, and furthermore set my price cap at around $5. So despite the multitude of offerings, it's rare that I see something that fits both my criteria.

However, one that did recently was VVVVVV, which was on sale for the incredibly low price of $2.50. The reviews were all positive, and although I wavered for a bit, there wasn't a downside to a game for that cheap, and after briefly playing the demo I semi-impulsively purchased the game.

I ended up being happily surprised by the game. As you might glean from the screenshot, it's a retro-style game essentially made by one man, and is all the more impressive for the background. It really is retro in almost every way possible. The controls are refreshingly simple: move left, move right, and action (as well as a fourth key for accessing the menu). It's an very standard old-school platformer, with the twist that the action key does not make you jump, but rather reverses gravity for your character. Thus, in the above screenshot, you can't make a large jump, but rather just have to reverse, then make another reversal while moving towards the ledge.

Instead of introducing tons of new items or abilites, you have just those controls for the entire game. Instead, the level varies, with new, intuitive mechanics introduced at different stages (such as moving platforms, timed stages, etc.) This manages to keep things fresh while not forcing the players to adjust to an entirely new gameplay mechanic. The individuals "levels" are integrated into an overworld, with a ton of teleporters scattered about so you don't have to spend too much time traveling if you don't want to, and a nice map so you're never lost.

It's not super apparent from the pictures, but it's actually rather pretty for a game with its graphics, often pulsating softly with different colors or accompanied by moving backgrounds, none of which are distracting and make for a much more pleasant view. The game is accompanied by a wonderful chiptune set that's quite entertaining and matches the gameplay perfectly with its upbeat melodies. The enemies in the game are really more of environmental hazards, since they all follow rigid patterns if they move. Some of them are also quite abstract, but it works in a weird way.

Of course, being so simple, the main challenge is what all old-school platformers had, and that is making the player have extremely good reflexes and precision to navigate. However, unlike other modern platformers like Super Meat By, VVVVVV is quite forgiving. There's almost always at least one checkpoint in a given room, and the majority of the time VVVVVV just wants you to accomplish one task at a time successfully, rather than make you complete a string of difficult tasks in a row. This does mean you're likely to die a lot (I managed about a thousand deaths in my first 2 hours of playing) but it kept me from getting overly frustrated for the most part.

The one exception for the above rules are when you're pursuing the shiny trinkets, of which there are 20. They're scattered about the overworld and levels, and the map tells you where they are, and they're completely optional; which of course means that players like me feel no choice but to hunt down every one.

There is technically a story here, but it's pretty unimportant and the game honesty doesn't need one

VVVVVV takes these moments to break its own rules, and some of these sections are quite difficult and unforgiving. For instance, apparently I died in the first room of this one section over 200 times, which doesn't include deaths in the other sections, and I'm sure it took me at least 500 tries to eventually get it (although this was by far the hardest section of the game). As with most difficult platformers, the difficulty is worth it, since when you finally accomplish it it's quite rewarding. The other nice thing is you know the difficulty is always with yourself, rather than bad enemy AI, bad level design, or other factors that are sometimes at fault with modern games. There is of course a downside to it being "all you," but also the upside of also being "all you" when you finally get it. 

There are a few minor critiques I have, despite the overwhelming amount of positives. Many of the sections require trial-and-error to complete successfully, unless you guess really luckily and get a section right. While it's not a big problem, since you usually respawn 2 seconds before you died, compared to games like Super Mario Galaxy where I could accomplish a difficult section on the first try since I could look ahead, it's a bit of a weird feeling. Similarly, the game is somewhat fast paced, and in some sections (like the Youtube one linked above) you have to start reacting before you enter the next section, which takes some getting used to. 

The main campaign took me about 2.5 hours to complete, with a further half hour afterwards to get the last remaining 6 trinkets, and a total of about 2k deaths. The game also offers time trials (which I didn't bother with since I  generally don't like them), an arcade game, the option to vertically flip the entire game, and if you're in for a real challenge, the ability to play the game with no respawns (something I can't imagine). It theoretically adds a lot of replayability, and I could definitely see myself replaying the main campaign in some point in the future (like I did for Braid) but I naturally haven't done that yet.

Overall, especially considering the price I paid, VVVVV was a fantastic little game. It had everything that a retro-platformer should have, with the perfect mix of old-school gaming and polish. It's not super long, but the cost isn't high, and the time it does last is a small blast and a nice diversion from whatever other activities you're busy with.

-HTMC