Concursion Review (PC)

Indie side-scrolling puzzle platformers have been flooding the market in recent years, mostly since the general design is easy to implement and developers can pay homage to the original games that shaped their childhood.

Unfortunately, not a lot of studios put in the effort to innovate or at least add an element of freshness to their experiences.

Indie studio Puuba, however, realized this and had the pretty intriguing idea of mashing together practically all the retro gameplay mechanics into a single puzzle platformer. As such, you'll start off in a sort of Super Mario Bros. experience and then quickly go through the likes of Ninja Gaiden or Pac-Man.

While the mashup idea is certainly quite impressive, does the game actually deliver on the bold promise or should it remain just a nice concept? Let's find out.

Concursion kicks off in a cliché way, as a lizard-like villain kidnaps the princess of the realm. While it could easily be classified as parody, the whole presentation is lacking in terms of depth and just ends up feeling like a dull retelling of a story as old as video games themselves.

You control the main protagonist and must search for the villain and the princess, while defeating different enemies and bosses in a side-scrolling platformer experience taken almost straight from Super Mario Bros.

The Princess has been kidnapped ...

... so you must find her

However, the game quickly shows that it's much more than that, as you start noticing different platforms through the levels that take both the protagonist and the players into completely different games.

First up, there's the aforementioned Mario-style platformer in which the hero can defeat enemies by jumping on top of their heads. You quickly enter new genres, like a ninja game similar to Shinobi or Ninja Gaiden, in which the player can execute double and wall jumps, while slashing their swords against enemies.

There's a side-scrolling space shooter in which you pilot a ship and must navigate "bullet hell"-like encounters. There's also a sort of physics platformer in which players must use their jetpacks to avoid traps and reach the end. Last but not least, there's a straight-up Pac-Man genre in which you navigate a maze and must gobble up balls in order to unlock exits, while avoiding enemies.

Mash all these concepts together and the end result is Concursion, a title that scores a lot of points for originality. Unfortunately, in terms of execution, the game doesn't fare all that well due to quite a few different reasons.

First up, the health system constantly jumps around, depending on the genre. The Mario-style one gives players just two lives, while the Shinobi one allows you to be hit quite a few times before making you restart. This fluctuates all over the place and carries over when jumping through the portals.

What's even more aggravating is that the controls aren't as tight as they should be, especially in such genres like the ninja or Pac-Man ones. In some cases this isn't that obvious, but in sections where perfect platforming or dodging is required, it becomes quite annoying.

Play Video

Boss fights also become very tedious because of the imprecise controls, as you can't escape from some attacks. Enemies in general also range in danger from the regular Goomba-like foes in Mario to the overly aggressive ships in the space-based shooter. Some levels also feature bombs that follow the player in order to add a sense of urgency. All this does is once again draw into question the controls and the platforming centered around them.

In case you think the unbalanced normal difficulty is too easy, there's also a hardcore mode with fewer checkpoints and even tougher challenges, although it mostly acts as a playthrough extender for those who like punishment.

There are some good points for Concursion, such as the ease of jumping between genres, but even this doesn't work at all times. There are moments when you need to jump from the ground as the platformer hero into a small bit of the sky where the ninja portion is, immediately execute a double jump, and then reach another platform. This sounds confusing when explained and gets really annoying in the game.

Level design is relatively good and varied, especially due to the different genres that require drastically different platform layouts. There are also plenty of shards hidden in obvious or less obvious places, but there's not that big of an incentive to get them all. As such, the main goal is just to reach the end of the level and engage in a disco dance that's amusing at first but gets rather awkward soon.

Concursion isn't helped by the visual design at all, as the graphics are extremely bare and make even the 20-year-old sources of inspiration look good. While pixelated and retro visuals can more often than not look good, here the style still looks like it's a work in progress.

The soundtrack is relatively good, managing to offer different themes for each of the genres, but it's not enough to relieve some of the frustration you'll experience in the game. The sound effects are quite repetitive, however.

Battle bosses ...

... and search for the Princess

The Good

The Bad

Conclusion