This week I have played several games of the platform genre, of those that are simple, but very entertaining. They are quite short games, so they can be completed in a few hours. Even if you know from the beginning what you have to do and how to do it, you can make a pretty interesting speed-run. Although with me it wasn't like that, I took my time to enjoy the game and I hope that next week I can publish at least the 2 Retro Reviews per week that I proposed to do, although I haven't fulfilled that purpose very well. This week I also finished watching the 2nd season of Ozark, so my impressions of the series I plan to post next week as well (though maybe "Procrastination Nation strikes again). But that's a topic for another post, today I'll talk about an adventure and platform game with a quite peculiar graphic style.
This SkullMonkeys is a direct sequel to a first game that I haven't played yet, in fact I didn't know it existed until I started playing, but I only know that instead of being a platform game, its prequel is a graphic adventure, so I will surely play it in a few weeks. This game tells us the story of salvation to a planet ruled by Klogg, an alien who came to the planet Idznak, where the Skull Monkeys live. This evil alien gets the inhabitants of the planet to make him their leader, since the Skull Monkeys are not very intelligent. But, Klaymen, the hero of the game, will be in charge of stopping Klogg's evil plans, in an unparalleled adventure, in a strange world full of dangers. A simple story, for a simple game in mechanics, but entertaining and with a very charismatic visual style.
The most striking thing about this game is its graphic style, since everything is made, from the characters to the scenery with "clay", giving it a "stop-motion" aesthetic, a feature seen in many animated films. This type of animation is one of my favorites, since you can notice the great work done, also the process in this type of work is quite arduous, but at the same time is quite undervalued.
SkullMonkeys, also has quite particular animations, each character moves with a different rhythm, which gives them great personality, especially the protagonist of the game. The variety of enemies is quite optimal, as well as their designs, they are very striking and unique. Being also, many of these designs, in addition to imaginative, some are also very bizarre, but that fit very well with all this style so characteristic of this game.
I did not expect this game to have such a unique visual style, so the surprise I had after just a few minutes of playing was quite pleasant. SkullMonkeys could easily be a movie, due to its excellent scenarios, with good details and very original. Its characters are weird, but charismatic, but especially with all the atmosphere that is able to create with all the elements mentioned above. Undoubtedly SkullMonkeys is a 10 is the graphic aspect.
The soundtrack of SkullMonkeys is simply great, listening to it somehow made me transmit the same feelings as the soundtrack of Crash Bandicoot, as several melodies have that "wild" or "jungle" rhythm, so characteristic of Crash, but also, in SkullMonkeys there are several musical genres in its soundtrack that fits excellently well with the environments and situations that we will live in this adventure. The sound effects in general, play a very important role in this game, as they give life to the scenarios and give a lot of personality to the main character, Klaymen, which has several sound effects that make this unique character even more unique and special for the player. Undoubtedly, both the soundtrack and the sound effects create a perfect combo for this game.
In terms of gameplay, SkullMonkeys maintains all the basic characteristics of 2D platform genre games, which consists of advancing in a series of scenarios, in which there will be different types of obstacles, which we must overcome to reach the end of each scenario. The different types of platforms and scenarios will be of great importance, since the "jump" will be the main action that we will perform in this game and doing it in the right way will be the difference between dying or achieving our goal.
However, SkullMonkeys also "forces" us to have to use violence against our enemies, because despite being very focused on the theme of platforming, eliminating certain enemies is also of great importance as we move forward in the scenarios. For this, the game gives us different items to eliminate our enemies, but some of these items are as absurd as the universe of this game, something that only adds more humor to this great video game.
SkullMonkeys was a big surprise for me, not so much at the level of mechanics and character control, as it is a fairly conventional 2D platformer, although with certain variants that makes its gameplay a little more fun than others, but at the graphic level, is one of the PS1 games with more charisma I've played, it was a pleasant surprise to see a game that uses the classic "stop-motion" style and that does it in such a humorous and bizarre way, in some cases, that does nothing but increase the charisma and personality to this great video game.
