When success is measured by how many pints of blood you spill, the satisfaction that comes from kicking foes into spinning saw blades, impaling them on barbed spears, or pummeling them into a spiked pit is all the more potent. They Bleed Pixels makes you work hard for every precious drop of the blocky red stuff you gather, but harvesting the macabre fluid from fallen foes to power your dark arts proves a surprisingly refreshing mechanic that helps make this punishing 2D platformer more fun than frustrating.
They Bleed Pixels' grim Lovecraftian vibe and beautifully crafted pixel art blends together with striking style. Developer Spooky Squid Games gives cool nods aplenty to the renowned horror writer and his eerie legacy throughout the presentation. Everything gets off to an appropriately ominous start when the black-clad heroine arrives on the doorstep to Lafcadio Academy for Troubled Young Ladies only to soon find herself possessed by a demonic book and thrust into a dark dream realm of monsters. Transformed by its unholy power into a purple skinned creature with talons for hands, she embarks on a quest to kick some serious demon backside.
Double jumping, wall-sliding, and pummeling through insidiously crafted stages that send you to your doom dozens of times in a single run through treads familiar turf carved out by other recent old-school inspired platformers. Levels demand split-second timing and precision in order to successfully navigate the minefield of spiked traps, spinning saw blades, death pits, and ravenous demon beasts populating each challenging area. Death comes at a near-incessant pace, leaving me with minor pangs of guilt every time the nameless pixelated heroine lets out a cry as she's mauled, impaled, or sliced in twain. Fortunately, getting dismembered isn't nearly as aggravating a prospect as it could be.
Even when your death tally piles up to ridiculous numbers, the tension of starting over never quite hits the snapping point, thanks to a smart checkpoint system designed to diffuse your wrath without stymieing the overall steep difficult curve. Collecting blood from kills, which gloriously paints the environment more crimson with every blow, increases a power meter that lets you drop a checkpoint on solid ground each time it's filled. Die a hundred times, and you can still progress as long as you stab through enough baddies and continue finding safe spots to summon portals on. I find it's a clever cure for the "hulk smash" syndrome that tends to inevitably set-in when I hit my threshold for masochistic platformer abuse.
While functional, a keyboard isn't my first choice for delving into these unforgiving platforming depths. Pulling off trickier death-defying stunts feels tighter and works a lot more smoothly with a good controller, though combat doesn't quite hit the mark regardless of how you play. Mapping close to a dozen or so possible attack moves to a single button feels cramped until you get a feel for the subtle nuances of delivering each maneuver. You deliver different kinds of blows depending on how long you hold the button down, what direction you hit at the same time, and your current position in relation to you foe. It's not that the moves aren't spectacular when used properly -- punting a foe into the air and watching them get stuck to ceiling spikes, impaled through noggin and dripping gore, is always impressive. But the difference between punching, dashing across the screen to punch, kicking a foe backwards, and booting them skyward is so minute that it's easy to pull off a different attack than you intended, which can muck things up rather quickly. The gameplay is a lot of fun despite its control quirks, if you spend a bit of time sorting it all out.
Much like the thought given to nailing a truly cohesive and stylish presentation, equal attention was clearly poured into making the unlockable extra content really pop. Hunting down collectibles hidden throughout each stage can greatly increase the challenge over merely plowing through a stage, but the rewards for nabbing hard-to-find trinkets and earning achievement-like "Blood Badges" are pretty awesome. The crayola-tinged bonus stage They Bleed Ponycorns (themed after the adorable flash indie Sissy's Magical Ponycorn Adventure) alone is well worth the effort, and you can also unlock tons of great bonus fan art from other indie devs and well-known artists.
Gothic brutality shines brightly throughout this blocky, blood-soaked indie platformer. Most of the time the punishment They Bleed Pixels dishes out is more enjoyable than not, since the morbid checkpoint portal system takes much of the stink out of getting disemboweled with every little whoopsie-daisy. If you don't let yourself get too tripped up by the sometimes convoluted combat controls, then this charming, well-crafted platforming bloodfeast will really sink its fangs into you -- in a good way.
Source : ign[dot]com
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