LogFAQs > #939860370

Final Analysis: VVVVVV

What I thought of VVVVVV: Short and sweet, if a little frustrating
Would I play VVVVVV again? Maybe, if only because it's so short.
Did it deserve to lose in Round 1? I'm okay with this.

The release of Cave Story in 2004 makes a decent marker for when indie games started to become legit. That game had a full-scale main quest, powerups, unlockable content, a secret ending, and a story with flawed characters and dramatic events. I didn't play Cave Story until 2017, but even then I found it attention-grabbing enough to quickly play to completion.

Six years later, VVVVVV feels almost retrograde in comparison to Cave Story. It doesn't really match the depth or scope of that game. Though there is something to be said for its succinct method of storytelling, given that gaming is a visual medium, it doesn't use it to go anywhere terribly interesting, and the gameplay is mostly limited to a few simple mechanics.

But that's a strength too: the immediacy and simplicity are what make VVVVVV. Despite a couple of difficulty spikes, it really is a well designed game. It's one of the pioneering titles in how to manage high difficulty without causing rage-quits: there's no delay between death and restarts and it ditches most of the dick moves that defined its predecessor I Wanna be the Guy, a game that would have spikes shoot from the floor just before a checkpoint, with no visual warning, and then laugh as you fought the urge to hurl your keyboard against the wall.

It wasn't the game's capriciousness that made me quit IWbtG, though. I gave up during the Castlevania section, when I had to navigate a narrow passageway through rapidly-shifting spikes. At times, VVVVVV indulges this same tendency to overdo its difficulty and becomes obnoxious.

2010 was close to the time when indie games really started to shift into the relative mainstream. I don't think our first two games contests had a single indie game, or if it did they didn't last long. For one of them to go toe-to-toe with a mainline Final Fantasy game, on this of all sites, says a lot about their success in this decade, after that history.

VVVVVV is a relic of a more innocent age for indies, before The Binding of Isaac popularized procedural level generation. Its carefully tuned challenges and deliberately laid-out non-linear overworld are far more satisfying than the randomized levels - and prizes - of a game like Eagle Island. I wasn't blown away by the game by any means, but I respect it. This is a good format for a one-man project to follow. A small scale and iteration upon a simple idea and a handful of mechanics keeps the scope manageable. A lot more would-be indie developers would actually finish their games if they took lessons from VVVVVV. Just don't copy the naming system.

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I'm playing every game from GotD 2020! Games Completed: 3/129
Currently Playing: Mass Effect