[PS3/Vita] Guacamelee

[CeeKay]

Metroid-vania game play with a Mexican twist.  would that make it Mexi-vania?

anyhoo:

Set in a world inspired by Mexican culture, Guacamelee! features a down-on-his-luck agave farmer named Juan Aguacate, who sets out to save the world when El Presidente’s Daughter is kidnapped by an Evil Charro Skeleton. The story takes place in and around a small village in Mexico, and has the player travelling through “The World of the Living” and “The World of the Dead” on his quest to rescue the girl he loves.

gameplay looks like a blast, and I find the art style to be appealing, but if they have great music like in the trailer playing the whole game I'll be sold.

[CeeKay]

they just announced that you can use the Vita as a controller for the PS3 version.  it will also be on show at PAX Prime.

[Turtle]

You know, I bet you that for the PS4, use of the Vita as a controller with extended info on the screen will be required for developers.

Still, sounding good.

[CeeKay]

April 9th release, $14.99 includes cross buy.

[EngineNo9]

Alright!  I'm definitely getting this one.  Between the art style, music and what they've shown of gameplay it looks like tons of crazy fun. 

Plus, Drinkbox made the best Vita launch title with Mutant Blobs Attack so I want to keep supporting them. 

[davidrobots]

IGN has their exclusive review up (uh... ok), but our review will be live Tuesday at 12:01 AM.

I hate these timed exclusive reviews. I get why they do it, but it's just... blergh. That's a rant for another day.

Anyway, I hope you guys check it out my review when it's posted.

[EngineNo9]

IGN has their exclusive review up (uh... ok), but our review will be live Tuesday at 12:01 AM.

I hate these timed exclusive reviews. I get why they do it, but it's just... blergh. That's a rant for another day.

Anyway, I hope you guys check it out my review when it's posted.

Hint, I think he liked it.   

So glad to hear that it lives up to expectations.  I'll be picking this up tonight when I get home and probably playing it on my Vita, so we'll see how much I can take of the difficulty.  I gave up on Super Meat Boy fairly quickly. 

[Dante Rising]

I really wanted this game, but:

Many of the levels’ later sections require absolutely perfect timing and precision, tasking you with perfectly chaining long strings of Juan’s moves together to navigate a winding path lined with buzz saws. One wrong move in these sections means starting all the way at the beginning. Later boss fights not only require an absolute memorization of all moves learned to that point, but they also need lightning quick reflexes and pattern recognition in order to move past them. One boss killed me at least a few dozen times before I finally got the hang of it and was able to defeat him and continue on my quest.

I'm past the point in my life where I have the time or inclination to play a game where I need to time everything perfectly, or get pushed back to the beginning of an area. Couple that with overly difficult bosses, and the game becomes a no-purchase for me. Its a shame, because I love the concept and and art style.

[davidrobots]

As far as the difficulty goes, the hardest parts of the game are completely optional (and hide the game's secretest of secrets), but there are some areas that will put your skills to the test. It's never as crushingly difficult as Super Meat Boy's hardest stuff, but it'll definitely give you a challenge.

The one of the bosses in particular was a pain in the ass, but it didn't make me longer than fifteen minutes to figure it out and beat him. Checkpoints are super generous, and dying during a boss fight (even during ones that have multiple stages) never feels truly painful.

Besides, the game won't take more than six hours to beat (unless you try to find everything, that is). If you don't mind a little bit more challenge in your games, I highly recommend it. The humor, the gameplay, the down right joy of exploration is totally worth it.

[davidrobots]

Oh, and thanks for reading the review! I appreciate it, and I'm glad it's able to help you make a decision either way.

[Teggy]

I have a history of getting stuck about 75% through any Metroidvania due to difficulty but I love playing them and I had money in my PS wallet so I picked this up to play on the Vita. I've put about 4 hours so far and doing pretty well. The second boss gave me some trouble, but I managed to make it through. The Vita sticks can be a bit sensitive, but I guess I can always switch over to PS3 if I get really stuck.

As David said, the game is very forgiving with saves so there is no backtracking from save rooms like Castlevania. Missing a jump usually means getting put back where you were before the jump with little to no health loss.

The game is really charming and funny and there are plenty of places to explore. Oddly enough I found

Spoiler for Hiden:

a QR code that basically just said "congratulations, you found a QR code".

[shon]

Really enjoying the game so far. I'm playing on the PS3 now and will try the vita version later tonight.  The soundtrack is awesome, I have the sound cranked up, and my subwoofer along with the buttkicker speaker and it's great feeling the beats and the punches.   

So far it hasn't been too difficult some of the platforming can be a little tough as you have to use your skills quickly, but again that is mostly to find different extras.  There are so many different references in the game it's going to be fun just to try and find them all.

So far I've seen...(remembered)

Spoiler for Hiden:

Mario and Luigi, Viva Pinata, Link, Metroid(of course), the Grumpy cat, and Castle Crashers.

[Dante Rising]

As far as the difficulty goes, the hardest parts of the game are completely optional (and hide the game's secretest of secrets), but there are some areas that will put your skills to the test. It's never as crushingly difficult as Super Meat Boy's hardest stuff, but it'll definitely give you a challenge.

The one of the bosses in particular was a pain in the ass, but it didn't make me longer than fifteen minutes to figure it out and beat him. Checkpoints are super generous, and dying during a boss fight (even during ones that have multiple stages) never feels truly painful.

Besides, the game won't take more than six hours to beat (unless you try to find everything, that is). If you don't mind a little bit more challenge in your games, I highly recommend it. The humor, the gameplay, the down right joy of exploration is totally worth it.

Hmm... glad to hear it. I've got a $10 coupon toward the PSN, so maybe I will give it a try. As I mentioned before, I really love the art style.

[Teggy]

Getting a lot of satisfaction out of this game - pulling off a tricky jumping combination feels great, and some of the collectibles are really cleverly hidden.

I can compare it to something like the demo for Harmoknight which I played recently. The second level they gave you was really difficult, and you had to basically power through it even though you were making mistakes. Very discouraging. Here, even though the puzzles can be difficult, they are very easy to retry and it's a lot harder to get frustrated.

[shon]

Played the game quickly on the vita and it looks and plays great.  Using the d-pad seems to be better than the PS3 analog stick as sometimes I get stuck doing something I didn't mean to do.  They do have cross game save support but I didn't try that.

[EngineNo9]

I was able to play for about an hour last night (on the Vita) and it's definitely fun.  I do wonder if I'm going to quickly get frustrated, though, not being able to do lots of crazy combos and stuff.  I'm pretty terrible at fighting games and things that require quick combos of multiple directions and buttons, and I can definitely see lots of that here even in the platforming. 

[The Grue]

Awesome game  is awesome.

[Teggy]

Up to the second form of the final boss...this is going to take some time to work out.

[Harpua3]

Pretty slick so far about an hr in.

[Teggy]

Finished! 13:24 and 83%. I'll have to see how much more I want to try and collect. I doubt I'll try hard mode - it was plenty hard on normal. I can't believe there are already people on the leaderboards with 100% hard mode runs.

[EngineNo9]

That's quite a different story from those that said the game is only 6 hours long.  Did you spend a lot of time backtracking already?

[Teggy]

That's quite a different story from those that said the game is only 6 hours long.  Did you spend a lot of time backtracking already?

I mostly worked on things when I was in the area. I came back for a few things but I didn't spend a lot of time revisiting areas. I would say it's probably a 10-11 hour game on a playthrough where you are at least doing some basic exploring.

Also note that PS+ members get a discount this week.

[Teggy]

OK, maybe I just suck at games. Lots of people on GAF are saying 100% took them under 10 hours, some quite a bit under.

[Harpua3]

Played some more last night. Tried it on the ps3 for the first time. Seemless cloud save is awesome. There's just something cool about picking up where I left off on a different device. Yay! 1080p on ps3!!!

[Canuck]

Played some more last night. Tried it on the ps3 for the first time. Seemless cloud save is awesome. There's just something cool about picking up where I left off on a different device. Yay! 1080p on ps3!!!

Cool I might try that as well. Enjoying it even though I've never really played this type of game before. If only all games only cost $15, I would buy so many more.

[Harpua3]

Same here. That price point is such a easy sell for me. Especially when you get both versions, and cloud saves. Hard to say no. This game is still really entertaining after about 4 hrs or so in. I think tonight will be bioshock infinite then some more of this goodness.