Aggelos review

Reviewed on: PC

Welcome stranger! Before talking about Aggelos itself, I want to give my humble opinion on tribute/spiritual successor games, games that drink from the source of the classics and use their models and aesthetics to create a new game based on them.

After all, there is a lot of debate about these games being just 2.0 copies of the originals, while others call them a tribute to the classics and a creation that doesn’t repeat the classics’ mistakes and only (tries to) gather their successes. Diverse opinions, leave yours in the comments and let’s see what comes out. This humble writer hopes many more games like this will come.

Aggelos is a great tribute

Aggelos is a tribute game to the classic Wonder Boy, a platformer with customization elements, one of the most memorable titles of the Master System. And Aggelos drinks from the source and creates a very well-made tribute (or copy) that does justice to the classic.

When you start the game, you’re already in the nostalgic mood; a tired story – save the princess, who would’ve thought! But a feeling of “ugh, again” arrives… And over time, you realize that this “again” is the idea the producers tried to convey. Doing what we did for hours and hours, week after week on our 90s cartridge consoles, the story is tired and very well done. Mission given is mission accomplished. A game to play, to have fun; pure playfulness with button-mashing in sync with the hero. Let’s go save the princess!

MECHANICS: 8.0

The game has a clean setting, without many aesthetic frills, pixel by pixel everything made to be a Wonder Boy in 2018, all in a harmony that makes you forget you’re not playing a real Wonder Boy.

Enemies, weapons, equipment; all its sprites make me see the old Wonder Boys, with a slightly polished aesthetic, what we imagined with few and fuzzy sprites in the 90s is now here, with polished and well-crafted sprites, the nostalgic charisma surfaces easily and quickly.

A not-Wonder Boy

Only one aesthetic factor didn’t please: the protagonist. The flagship of many games, your representative inside the machine, the hero, the one who should be the game’s draw, something to be reflected upon, was the factor that hooked me the least in the game. The protagonist is well built, his animations are very good, but he is completely generic and bland, totally forgettable within hours. The producers’ fault? Maybe, the original protagonists weren’t the most charismatic, and its tribute protagonist isn’t either.

Maybe it’s just this writer’s opinion, but blond protagonists, well-cut hair, heroic and determined, we’re tired of them. We’re tired of this cliché protagonist model (except for Jaime Lannister), and that cuts a bit of the desire for immersion and sympathy with the hero. A demotivating point of the game, which doesn’t affect the nostalgia or the desire to finish this great game.

The enemies, on the other hand, are charismatic, full of life and memorable, some strong, others very cute, adorable and some even scowling. With very well-crafted and animated lines. The work reminded me a lot of the lines of the master Akira Toriyama. With the save-the-princess theme, we have enemies that could very well be part of the Dragon Quest universe.

The bosses are another strong point, with a very well adjusted difficulty level, not too easy and not at the level of the old Castlevanias either. Very charismatic and they make you try a few dozen times to manage to finish them.

NARRATIVE: 9

The game’s gameplay is very good. The controls respond very well; the gameplay is organic. You absorb its “playing”, master it and overcome the challenges. New abilities are unlocked as you advance through the screens, and they are distinct, from new moves to teleportation techniques with a fireball. Seriously! With a fireball.

The abilities are very well used with the game’s level design, creating puzzles and chests that will give you headaches and calluses when trying to grab your loot. All intuitive and not frustrating, but challenging.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCKiV7vS9qc]

AUDIOVISUAL: 9

Classic, well crafted, being perfect and clean? No, being truly classic, with the classic little hisses and noises that will make you even more nostalgic. Ability and enemy effects that would give a lesson to the creators of Shovel Knight (which is already very good, by the way).

Who is this game for?

Every retrogamer who loves the classic consoles, and fans of an efficient, beautiful and well-made challenging platformer. And of course, also for everyone who wants a good game but, at the moment, not very cheap, since it is R$ 28,99 on Steam. But it’s worth having on your wishlist for a future sale.

Conclusion

Aggelos is a masterpiece from Wonderboy bobi, a crew that has made other tribute games and is refining with each work. We eagerly await the next game!

The playable demo and all their other works can be found at this link . The game delivers everything it promises, even containing a “water” stage, the infamous ones that stressed many players in several classic titles.

As a tribute game, it played its part masterfully. Judged as a platformer, it is a great game, lacking some unique stimulus, some personality of its own, especially in the protagonist, but none of this affects the desire to play.

FINAL SCORE: 8.5.