Developer: Fred Wood
Genre: Platformer
A part of the Itch.io Racial Justice bundle - 3/1,741
Control over the small stick man and his cute, little hat is incredibly tight and responds perfectly to each precise tap of the joystick - a necessity for many of the difficult tasks ahead of you. Room design itself is great despite some redundancy and no single floor is badly designed. The obstacles of each room and the unique mechanics that appear through them serve as great brain teasers for on the spot engagement and utilizing the space provided by the platforms and attempting little shortcuts left behind by the developer to shorten your time makes for a fun challenge. You will run through multiple industrial floor rooms and a decaying body (for some reason) avoiding spikes, electrical fencing, empty pits, saw blades, and bullets.
LOVE is a great platformer with enough accessibility to give casual players a tough challenge without being overwhelming while those seeking greater challenges have many different ways to prove themselves. If difficult platforming and speedrunning is your name then LOVE is definitely your game.
Technical issues:
LOVE+ can be purchased through the Nintendo e-Shop, Steam and Itch.io now
What sets LOVE apart from the multitude of "hardcore" platformers that came around its time is that the game is only as difficult as the player allows it to be. Your greatest opponent and only enemy through this multi-level run is hubris - and lots and lots of spikes. Terrifying opponents indeed, especially for those too confident, or not confident enough, over their ability to control a character. Knowing the timing of each jump is only the beginning for LOVE, which takes you through 16 rooms of various platform challenges and gimmicks as you race against the clock or attempt to reach the end on 99 or one single, solitary life. The catch? You, the player, determine your checkpoints.
Much like an emulator save state you get to decide if you need a safety net when facing a challenge you're not confident with or if you have the guts to rush an entire room knowing that death means starting over. It alleviates some of the familiar frustrations with this style of platformer, but that doesn't make gameplay a walk in the park, either. Your own failings as a player will work against you. Cockiness means death, nervousness spells doom, and frustration means running into the same spike pit over, and over, and over. Quickly you will find that the very generous 99 lives extended toward you at the beginning of your playthrough may not have been enough after all. Death is to be expected as you become accustomed to the layout of each room and it is incredibly satisfying to pull off a run without dying or needing to abuse checkpoints.
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| This is definitely an OSHA violation... |
Control over the small stick man and his cute, little hat is incredibly tight and responds perfectly to each precise tap of the joystick - a necessity for many of the difficult tasks ahead of you. Room design itself is great despite some redundancy and no single floor is badly designed. The obstacles of each room and the unique mechanics that appear through them serve as great brain teasers for on the spot engagement and utilizing the space provided by the platforms and attempting little shortcuts left behind by the developer to shorten your time makes for a fun challenge. You will run through multiple industrial floor rooms and a decaying body (for some reason) avoiding spikes, electrical fencing, empty pits, saw blades, and bullets.
LOVE is a great platformer with enough accessibility to give casual players a tough challenge without being overwhelming while those seeking greater challenges have many different ways to prove themselves. If difficult platforming and speedrunning is your name then LOVE is definitely your game.
Technical issues:
- Spike collision seems off in certain areas of the game, in a few instances the player character seemed to have collided headfirst into spikes but moves across them unharmed.
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