It’s nice to play a game that’s fun for once. Not just fun, but celebrates a culture of people with interesting background and history surrounding them. To be fair the game we’re about to dive into has some really stereotypical depictions of said culture, but not in an offensive way. It just plays on the goofy ideas people are familiar with and delivers an enjoyable experience. The game in question is Guacamelee, an animated metroidvania that takes inspiration from Spanish culture. Specifically their yearly festivals, colorful artwork, and their traditions to respect the dead. Now I don’t know alot about Spanish history, but I have seen a couple of Spanish traditions in action. The middle school I attended had a Spanish class, and whenever a huge cultural event was on the horizon we would spend time learning about the event. It was a lot of fun. We got to paint, dine on Spanish treats, and learn how to speak a little Spanish. I’m trying to be respectful as possible, so sorry if I don't get every detail right.
Anyways, Guacamelee was made by DrinkBox Studios who are an independent team of game developers stationed in Toronto. They made quite a few titles over the years like Severed and more recently Nobody Saves The World, but one of the earlier games they made was Guacamelee back in 2013. It wasn’t their first game though. They started off with the Tales From Space series, but once they made enough money they began work on more ambitious projects. A game that would demonstrate the pure talent they had and they were capable of delivering greatness. Guacamelee just came out of nowhere with not that much advertisement surrounding it and being only available on the PC and Playstation 3 at the time. Remember that it’s an indie game, and 2013 was before the indie scene started picking up and delivering more bangers. Before more individuals felt determined to work for themselves and dedicate time into making games.
Guacamelee releases and surprisingly it’s a success. Drinkbox’s new property did well enough to attract players and give them the attention they deserved all this time. Guacamelee was praised for its colorful visuals, intriguing world, fun beat-em up combat that rewarded mastery, and being one of the more approachable metroidvanias out there. It has obtained cult status and is considered one of the best in the genre. The game received a sequel five years later in 2018 and was received equally as well as the first game. Guacamelee also helped with the revival of the metroidvania genre. With two of the big influencers Metroid and Castlevnaia no longer active, players would never receive more metroidvanias styled games. However, there were developers willing to recapture the feeling these games had. Early on there was Cave Story, Axiom Verge, Dust: An Elysian Tale, and of course Guacamelee. The success and positive reception these titles have was enough to prompt other devs to make their metroidvanias. It’s why you now see so many of them on the Steam marketplace. With so many new contenders coming out each day and out matching older titles you wonder if Guacamelee still holds up today. The answer is yes.
I’ve been meaning to try Guacamelee for a long time now, but haven’t picked it up until recently when I snagged myself a physical copy on the Nintendo Switch which is really hard to come by nowadays. I was going to start off right with the second game first, but it felt like a better idea to see how the storyline started. Played through the first game over the last week and managed to obtain both the normal and true ending. With six hours logged into the game I can confidently confirm that Guacamelee remains to be one of the best in the genre. With solidly designed content, world design and pacing that never gets confusing, and a consistent difficulty curve. This review is going to be extremely positive but kind of biased, because if any of you readers know I absolutely love metroidvanias. Yes, Hollow Knight and Ender Lilies are still my favorites with Hollow Knight being my number one game of all time. Yet, that doesn’t mean I look down on other contemporaries as they just serve more of what I love. With that said let’s look into Guacamelee and see why it deserves your attention.
Story
Juan Aguacate was just your ordinary farmer who lived in a small village known as Pueblucho. Just another contributor to the community who helps out when he’s needed and thanks to the strength he has built over the years is able to handle jobs a majority of the citizens can’t do by themselves. Today is Day of The Dead, and Juan is called in to prepare the local church for a nightly festival. This year it’s a special occasion though, because the president will be coming down from his manor alongside his daughter Lupita. Juan and Lupita have known each other for awhile, as at a younger age Lupita was there to witness Juan stand up against a town bully. She and Juan have remained good friends, but secretly have feelings for one another that they aren’t willing to express in public. Lupita is getting ready to dress nice for the festival, and Juan smashes some barrels littered around town. Suddenly an explosion is heard from the president’s manor and Juan rushes over to see what is going on. Turns out an unknown evil has arrived to terrorize the town, and his devious plans involve the kidnapping of president’s daughter.
The sinister looking man is tall, wears a dark sombrero, and rather than be made up of flesh and skin he’s instead just bones. Otherwise he is undead. The man’s name is Carlos Calaca and he came from the underworld to wreak havoc on the living. Alongside him are an army of skeletons, monsters, and a allis with unholy powers. This includes a woman who can teleport at will and emits dark energy, a gunslinger with a flaming head, three musicians conjoined together and help manufacture the skeleton army, and a half-tiger warrior who hails from the mountains. All of them are against mankind and want to help with Calaca’s plan to perform a ritual that combines both the land of the living and the dead. So that everyone can witness the harsh punishments the land of the dead has to deal with. Juan tries to thwart Calaca’s plans, but is killed with one snap of Calaca’s fingers and sent to the afterlife. Lupita is kidnapped and Calaca’s minions are sent out to terrorize other townships. Juan awakens in a realm between life and death where an undead female luchadora confronts him about the chaos. Her name is Tostada and she gives Juan a mask that grants him luchador superpowers created by greater beings. Juan puts on the mask and obtains the strength to make it back to the land of the living and fight against the undead. Juan will defeat each of Calaca’s minions, chase him down, and rescue the girl he spent his life caring for. He may even learn why there's a disturbance with the dead.
Gameplay
If you played any proper metroidvania then you’ll feel right at home with Guacamelee. You explore a vast interconnected world, fight a variety of enemies, and unlock powers that open up shortcuts which reduce backtracking and new segments of the world to venture through. It’s what you come to expect from a metroidvania, but there are a few neat twists that makes Guacamelee differ from a majority of metroidvanias. One of those elements being the combat and how it can be highly intense at times. What I’m not saying is that it’s overly difficult, but it does push your buttons. You brawl your way through baddies, use special moves to knock them about, and try to maintain a long combo streak. There’s a lot of moves you can pull off during fights. You can use the basic punches, dodge rolls which offer invincibility frames to roll through enemies attacks, and grab moderately sized enemies to suplex/throw them around, but you have your powers which add a bit of spice. The uppercut, a bodyslam to hit anything below you, a headbang to deal heavy damage to what is in front of you, and a thrust punch that’s good for hitting a row of enemies and launching yourself across a short distance. Special moves use energy points and when they are low you must wait for them to regenerate. There’s also this power meter which builds up overtime, and activating it gives Juan a temporary strength boost.
Does this mean you can just wildly mash away at the attack buttons and gain an easy win. No, of course it doesn’t. Enemies can overwhelm you easily and bring you down within seconds if you don’t play wisely. There’s a wide variety of them and they all get you to switch your playstyle on the fly. You have the green skeletons, the yellow ones who do a long range swipe, the red ones who launch projectiles at you, the flying dragon bat who spit fire, the ginormous skeletons, the hammer skeletons, the exploding orb bats, the skeletons who dodge around with multiple blades, and I just realized a majority of these enemies are skeletons. Oh well, skeletons are pretty fun to beat up anyways. Some enemies will have gimmicks though and you’ll need to utilize your special powers to beat them. Like those exploding bat orbs must be dealt with immediately or else they’ll do heavy damage to you, and the stronger ones will kill you instantly. Flying enemies can’t be reached easily, so use attacks that launch you into the air or strike anything above you. Then you have the shielded enemies. These ones are unique in that you must hit them with an attack that is the color of their shield and if not you can’t do proper damage to them. Red must be hit with an uppercut, yellow for headbash, green for bodyslam, blue for thrust punch, and the white must be dealt with several successive hits. The variety of foes are enough to keep you on your toes and utilize every tool you have at your disposal. A simple yet engaging combat loop.
With the combat out of the way let’s move onto the exploration. There are several areas of the world to explore and you’ll at least visit each one once or twice to progress the story. The goal is to reach specific rooms that will trigger a story related scene or boss fight against one of Calaco’s higher ups. Getting there isn’t simple because of the fights mentioned earlier, hazards blocking your way, and the shortest route being locked off until later. You must navigate the environment and discover the route that leads forward. You have navigation abilities like the wall jump, the double jump, the chicken transformation to fit through small crevasses, and this late game flying ability that just allows you to soar across long distances as long as you don’t hit a wall. One ability that I find really interesting is the world switching mechanic. There is the living world and the world of the dead, and switching between both can either change the layout of an area or remove/add things. You can tell when an item will fade in and out of existence if it sparkles. The game will make you use the world switching mechanic often to get through tough platforming challenges and even defeat enemies who exist in one of two worlds. You will also have to use powers to break certain blocks to open up shortcuts.
There are a couple rewards for going off the beaten path. You may uncover challenge rooms that offer a treasure chest if you navigate them successfully. These chests can be smashed and may contain money, or fragments to upgrade one of several traits. Health, energy points for special powers, or an increase to your supercharge meter. You need three fragments in total to gain a permanent upgrade, so keep your eye out for these optional rooms and chests whenever you can. You may even uncover secret areas that contain more optional challenges to test your skills. Final element to bring up are the bosses. They have two phases each, multiple attacks, and it’s your job to understand them and whittle their health down to nothing. It can take multiple attempts, but eventually you’ll pick up and perfect it. Besides that there’s nothing else to bring up. Hopefully Juan can save the day and bring an end to this day of dead.
Thoughts
Guacamelee holds up incredibly well and it’s no wonder why it’s viewed as an indie classic. I’m not gonna lie, for a game that came out in 2013 it feels like it came out just recently. There’s no way a product this well made came out nine years ago, but even so that’s how you tell a game has aged beautifully. There’s a lot this game gets done right and even when it gets tough at times it’s not enough to make me appreciate it. To start my compliments off I’d like to say this game does a great job respecting and paying tribute to Spanish culture. I know the game relies heavily on stereotypes and depictions, but it’s not in a bad or offensive way. It’s in a joyous way where they rely on the elements people recognize the most, and play on that idea. Delivering this experience that is colorful, bombastic, and keeps you energized the entire way. The soundtrack is this orchestrated fiesta and the color palettes they use is reminiscent of the colors the Spanish use. I also like how the entire adventure is taking place during Day of The Dead. A time to pay respect to those who have passed away.
The game itself and how it feels to play is fantastic. Combat is satisfying as every single attack and blow has impact. It’s easy to transition into different attacks and land combos. The enemy variety is enough to challenge you and get you to try all your abilities in a single fight. What I think the combat and overall challenge nails well is that it never ramps up too quickly. The game gets hard, but it paces you. Future challenges utilize future abilities, and when you feel extremely overpowered they dump the right amount of enemies to still offer a meaty challenge. It’s fair and never exceeds the amount of challenge that is truly needed. Platforming challenges are also pretty good as much as the combat they utilize every ability on you, and if you fail you aren’t kicked back too far. You are offered a lot of checkpoints, so thanks to whomever placed them. World design is great as well and it shouldn’t take long to get you to where you need to go. Level design is fairly linear and does a good job pointing towards the right direction.
Overall the game and its design is rock solid. The story is rather simple, but it’s good. The crazy villains you’ll face, the places you’ll end up in, and learning more about what is going on. I like the villain and his backstory as to how you ended up undead. The protagonist doesn’t speak much, but he’s a good character as well. How he stands tall no matter how much he gets beaten up and just wants to protect those who are innocent. Who doesn't have the strength he does and can’t protect themselves. Dialogue can be pretty funny at times. The writers are aware of how silly the world is, so they write characters who are aware of how silly the world and current situation are. Jokes like the fire headed guy downing a glass of water instead of alcohol before he dies, or this one recurring joke where a man who can transform into a goat argues with you about breaking his statues which contain the upgrades you need to progress. Then asking if you have a mother and if he can date her. The game even makes fun of its influencers. Those statues you smash are Chozo Statues from Metroid. You didn’t read that wrong. Not chicken statues, but actual Chozo Statues from Metroid. There’s even a section where you are being chased by a giant monster, you cross a bridge, and flick a switch to dump it in lava just like Super Mario. Not everyone will like these nods and references, but I like how they pulled them off. Shows what they took inspiration from.
Everything about this game is fantastic, but I do have a few gripes. Nailing successive combos and keeping a long streak is fun, but there’s no real reward for getting good at it. I never noticed any changes for maintaining a long combo streak. The coins you obtain from exploring and defeating enemies can be spent to unlock attack upgrades and fragments to stat upgrades, but I never really spent any of them. It’s not that I felt discouraged from spending money, but what the game gives you through exploring the world and uncovering secrets is good enough to get you the entire way through. However, it does mean what you unlock through the shop isn’t mandatory or that you will be screwed if you don’t buy any upgrades from it. There’s a normal ending and a true ending. Both of them are really satisfying and offer great conclusions to the story. However, the stuff you have to do for the true ending is really bizarre. Not overly difficult, but some of these challenges can be a little too much. These are however minor complaints and they don’t detract from the experience. Overall Guacamelee is near perfection. It does a lot of things right, has a good difficulty curve, and the quality is top notch. I strongly recommend it to any metroidvania fans, and if you aren’t a metroidvania fan then give this one a whirl. It’s one of the easier ones to pick up and more accessible due to a tighter focus on a linear adventure. It’s a masterpiece and I’m off to play the sequel. In the end I give Guacamelee a 9.5/10 for excellence at best.
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