If you don’t know what a “speed run” is, quick! Look it up on Youtube and be prepared to be amazed by folks that can complete Super Mario World in less time then it takes most people to take a shower. As we know, that is not the way Super Mario World was intended to be played, but Galactic Goat Games has released a new creation that puts the speed run in the spotlight. Edgeland: Trials of a Lost Circle invites you to power through three different worlds of the Edgelands, guiding your little circle friend home to the roundland of Circlia.
If you grew up in the early 90’s you may remember a little program called Kid Pix. Why am I bringing up this old (yet still kind of entertaining) child’s art computer program? Once you see Edgeland, you will understand. The landscapes and backgrounds are composed of large, pointy chunks of geometric shapes (lots of “edges”), filled by the paint bucket tool with a preselected pattern. There is obvious thought in the lay out of the platforms, hills and tunnels; however, the actual artistic quality is an afterthought. Don’t get me wrong, the enemies and the little blue protagonist are pretty adorable (and slightly Angry Birds like) but if you’re looking to be amazed and dazzled by graphics, this is not the game for you. Luckily, the game play shines through and the simplistic design doesn’t take away from that.
Edgeland does not present any new concepts or mechanics to the gaming industry but it does rehash some pretty successful ones. If the fast paced platforming reminds you of another blue (and sometimes ball-like) video game icon and his game play, you wouldn’t be far off. The creators of Edgeland have obviously played a lot of Sonic the Hedgehog but it isn’t a complete remake by any standard.
The game play is simple to grasp, making it a good candidate for a casual gamer. All you can really do with your ball-man is go backwards, forwards and jump but the fun comes in when you figure out how to use those skill with the environment to launch yourself into the air or take out a pile of enemies but rolling over them in your spike suit. Edgeland also introduces a puzzle element that extends the game exponentially during your first run through of each level. Well, I suppose puzzle may not be the right word, it’s more like a “find the finish line” challenge. Don’t get me wrong, finding the end point of each course can be a time consuming obstacle the first time you play but once you know where your ultimate goal is, the puzzle element is gone. When you know where you’re going, you can instead concentrate on completing each level as fast as possible to earn gold, silver and bronze metals, which is the overall point of the game. You can also see how you rank against other players with Edgeland’s convenient leader board.
The downfall of Edgeland is the penalty for failure. Not only does it take a bit too long to re-spawn your character, but the checkpoints (which you only know you’ve passed when a bright light flashes on the screen) are not exactly placed where you’d like them to be. You’ll find yourself completing a particularly difficult part of the level and then making one mistake that forces you to start the whole thing over. This can be endlessly frustrating and cause you to just skip the level.
As far as platformers go, Edgeland is not my favorite but it was entertaining for the price. Available for download on Desure, Edgeland provided a good amount of game play time for the $1.99 I dropped on it. Also, it was nice to be reminded of the art games of my past and then play through them. If this had been on my first computer, I would still be fixated to my screen with fascination but now that I have an Xbox 360 that plays Bioshock, I probably won’t be spending too much more time on this one.