In the end Nightmare Boy offers up something thoroughly different from a visual standpoint and can be quite challenging, just not always for the right reasons. If you give it some time it does pick up momentum and you can get into a groove but when you hit the spots where you’re not sure where you’re going, things understandably drag quite a bit. Probably only recommended for the most die-hard Metroidvania fans who have blown through what’s already available on the system, show patience with Nightmare Boy and some fun can be had with it.
Nightmare Boy
The Vanir Project · Oct 25, 2017
About
Nightmare Boy is a metroidvania, action/adventure 2D game where you\'ll meet weird and unique friends and foes. But tread carefully: Quirky characters and their reactions can have game-changing consequences. Be prepared to collect rare items, vanquish enemies, and eventually face your deepest fears.
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Critic reviews
- 5.0Nightmare Boy throws a whole heap of platform-adventure ideas at the wall, but only a few of them manage to stick. It's a Metroidvania with a distinctive style all of its own, but there are some glaring issues with its narrative, controls, pacing and performance. If you're after something completely different in the platformer category and have a high frustration threshold, however, there's a certain amount of quirky fun to be had here.
- 4.0Nightmare Boy had the potential to be a quirky and fun take on the Metroidvania platform, but it squanders that potential by falling flat in nearly all the fundamental components of what makes those types of games fun to play in the first place. It has some neat character designs and thoughtful art choices, but they don’t make up for the numerous glaring flaws.
- 5.0Nightmare Boy is a fun experience for a few hours, and a lot of the glaring design choices around the gameplay can be overlooked or ignored for the most part. While Billy may feel heavy to control, he does almost always make it to the platforms, while the fighting systems are quite basic, but it allows for the focus to be on the exploration side of things instead.
- 5.0Nightmare Boy, while stylistically interesting and unique, amounts to little more than a frustrating take on the Metroidvania genre in the long run. Its inconsistent difficulty curve means it's too hard to be entry level at times, while also being too easy to be anything else.
- 6.0Nightmare Boy is an admirable first attempt by a two-person studio, with a compelling artistic vision backed up by wild and unexpected creativity. However, strict adherence to outdated gameplay tropes and questionable narrative pacing make this a difficult game to recommend to everyone, especially with the abundance of other high quality Metroidvanias on the market.
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