Acroyear77

An homage to platformers, but with the twist of playing from the bad guy's perspective, Nefarious gleefully brings an easily accessible yet challenging game. The music, art direction, game play, and level design all tip their hat to the past, with notable nods to Megaman, Sonic, among others. My kids wandered in as I was playing and immediately were drawn to it, despite normally being disinterested in retro/platformer games, and began to binge on it. Is it perfect? No, some of the level design coasts a bit (notably in the spiked balls of death level), and there is a JRPG themed boss battle that was good for a laugh but challenged none of us. Even so, the humor is buoyant and plentiful, and the character interactions and dialog serve not only as periodic rewards, but as the real motivation to move on and play the next level to see what happens next. Lastly, the mechanic of playing as the villain, driving the giant death machines, absconding with princesses, and thwarting the heroes... it is every bit as satisfying as it should be. As an inexpensive title it can be forgiven for not being terribly long, and it does make up for it's brevity by successfully leaving the audience wanting for more.