VVVVVV Review — A Timeless Indie Classic
This review marks what I believe are my 4th and 5th playthroughs of VVVVVV, on my 3rd purchased copy. I don’t really believe I’m the EXACT…
This review marks what I believe are my 4th and 5th playthroughs of VVVVVV, on my 3rd purchased copy. I don’t really believe I’m the EXACT target audience for VVVVVV (more on that in a bit), but I love playing through it all the same. It’s a clever, difficult little platformer, and it’s a great joy to play.
VVVVVV is simple. You move left and right and can invert gravity when touching ground or ceiling. Explore the map, save your friends, collect some shiny things, and try not to die. It’s so simple that you might wonder how it gets the praise in the first place, and I’d say that’s because of all the little threads that tie it all together.
The music, for one, is phenomenal and I think makes the entire experience for me. I’ve died in rooms hundreds of times, filled with nothing but determination because the soundtrack is banging louder in my mind than the voice of defeat. It’s so good I’d even recommend just listening to it a la carte. Just search for PPPPPP.
The other thing is a bit of a catch-all, but the visual style of the game is so good. Weird rooms with little guys, strange contraptions and creatures, words, and numbers that kill, all things to avoid of course. It makes for an experience that feels wholly unique and truly charming as you navigate through this strange dimension.
Of course, the most important aspect of it all is that the game is fun. Rooms are well designed, and some of the most difficult are even possible for those who might not entirely have an iron will like me. In some of what I consider to be the most frustratingly hard areas (this time around) I only found myself stuck for a little over 5 minutes — which is bearable! And for what it’s worth, they are really rewarding to master and clear.
This brings me to an important metric and mechanic of the game. My fastest game completion time this go-round was a little over an hour. And you might think… ‘wow that is super short’. It is short, but it’s also supposed to be the type of game that you speed run.
There are a few ways that VVVVVV trains you to get your time down. After your first completion, you unlock time trials for some of the game’s more difficult sections that you can play to complete right from the start menu. You can play these over and over again to optimize your time and strategies before committing to a real full-on run-through of the entire game to try for the fastest time.
Something they also do to perhaps help you with your fastest time is encourage you to complete the game ‘deathless’ without dying a single time. You’d have to really commit to the game to do that, and you probably feel like the most incredible human being in the universe when that happens. It probably helps your speed game a lot too. But that is way beyond my gaming capabilities.
Both the speed running, and deathless challenges are excellent components of the VVVVVV experience and I’m sure to a degree, the players drawn to these are the target audience. As for me, I’m fine with a chill little platforming adventure through another dimension for a few hours. I’m content with exploring and taking it all in at my own pace and dying by my own dumb mistakes while I jam out to the soundtrack. It’s a great journey in that alone and I think that’s what makes it so easy to recommend. With it constantly on same for just over a buck, how could you not try it for yourself?
Overall, I love VVVVVV and have been recommending it to gamers for years. It’s never too expensive, and it’s always been a joy to come back and play it. I know some areas of this game can be very difficult for some, but I promise if you stick out the journey to the end (and perhaps beyond), you’ll find a compact little indie game that you can flip into your stack of favorites.
Originally published at https://backloggd.com.