PlayStation 4 Critic Reviews

Flywrench creates complex challenges through simple design structures, absorbing you into to its mesmerising gameplay for hours upon end.

Flywrench is a treat. It’s amazing how Messhof has transmuted the very basic activity of controlling a little bendy line through a minimalistic level, into the feeling of being some kind of superhero. When the music is hitting just right, and you’re flipping through those colored gates at breakneck speeds the game feels somehow important. Like getting to the end of the level has something riding on it. Then you remember that you’re just flapping a little line around the bare skeleton of a game… which makes the illusion all the more impressive.

Flywrench is an excellent action-obstacle game. The game eases you in gently for a little too long before cranking the difficulty sky high which will put off some players but if you master the controls then you’re sure to relish the, eventual, challenge.

Flywrench is a deceptively simple challenge that requires nerves of steel and a vast reservoir of patience if you want to see everything it has to offer. When the game clicks it’s a fantastic challenge, with the difficulty offset by the short levels that make you feel like a pure ninja master when cleared.

Flywrench is far more than the simplistic graphics might let on, these colored lines create diabolically difficult obstacle courses that will take the utmost skill to complete. Capitalizing off short levels and instant respawns, Flywrench follows in Super Meat Boy’s footsteps by presenting a challenge that’s harder to put down than it is to finish.

Despite its difficulty, Flywrench never lets up. While it’s not casting a particularly wide net, for those that fell in love with the games of its kind it is without a doubt one of the best in its class.

Flywrench is best compared to some of the other games that were developed at the start of the indie gaming boom a decade ago. Unlike titles like Super Meat Boy and VVVVVV, I wasn't able to get the same sort of twitchy satisfaction from Flywrench mostly due to its emphasis on momentum. There's still fun to be had with Flywrench but a lot of it depends on how forgiving you are of its difficult color-changing, momentum-maintaining mechanics.

Overall I enjoyed my time with Flywrench but wished there was a better process for learning what was right and wrong in terms of mechanics. It starts off so well with elements and mechanics being introduced slowly but surely. By the later stages I was sure I’d be ready for the challenge, and maybe someday I will be. But after a few too many deaths and dumb luck wins I felt put-off. There’s definitely a lot to like with Flywrench for fans of the insanely difficult, rapid-spawning games but for the more casual it will only offer a brief run through 170+ levels that will end in glorious victory, endless deaths, or sheer, dumb luck.