Shiftlings

Shiftlings A puzzle game that will have you pulling your hair. There isn’t much of a story here, an alien drinks some block hola cola, gets gas, and you pass the gas back and forth between your partner who is connected by a hose for an intergalactic game show. This is just a puzzle game, an obstacle course, something to play to challenge yourself more so than to experience. There are 5 worlds in total, 10 levels in each world all progressively getting harder. At the end of each world there is a boss level which is just like the other 9, but with moving parts. The puzzles are very trial and error, and for the most part are forgiving. You can try as long as you want to figure a level out, I consider this stage of the game a testing the waters portion. While you are also testing the waters you can grab collectibles for even more challenge, but the collectibles highlight the greatest problem and frustration with this game. For a puzzle game, solutions rely far too often on physical character timing rather than problem solving and environmental timing. Too often I felt like I had to get lucky to grab certain collectibles. Going through this game for the 30 hours it took me to be the first platinum obtainer in the universe, made me feel more lucky than it did smart. I never felt like I was clever when I finally got a collectible that I was button mashing for 40 minutes to get. The sole problem with this game is that you are rewarded for figuring things out with frustration to execute it, really bringing down the enjoyment level. The characters themselves handle great though, it definitely takes some time getting used to switching characters and switching back and forth between using 1 character and 2 simultaneously. This never becomes frustrating, but does take practice. After you have finished the 10 levels in 1 world, you unlock the next world and you also unlock time trials and leaders boards which to me is really when the fun kicks in, for selfish trophy hunting reasons, id prefer that time trials unlocked as soon as you beat the level so you can master each with repetition, but its not too big of a deal to go back after you have defeated the worlds boss. You can also play co op locally and online… As you can guess in a game all about timing and puzzles, playing with someone else can do more harm for your sanity than good, not to mention the potential leg, so play with a friend at your own risk. Overall I enjoyed my time with shiftlings, if there is a shiftlings 2 I can only hope that they focus more on problem solving than throwing in luck elements. I want to feel challenged, not frustrated. For what it is Puzzle Platformer 8/10 Overall 8/10