Nightmare Boy
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Critic Reviews for Nightmare Boy
Nightmare Boy pays homage to classic 16 bit platform games. It´s colorful, well animated and fun to play, although you can finish the game in less than four hours.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Nightmare 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.
Nightmare 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.
A most effective metroidvania with referents such as such as Decap Attack, Cool Spot or Global Gladiatiors. But is not another game built on nostalgia, it takes his predecesor to achieve it's own personality. A solid gameplay and a beautiful art desing complete a game that should be and instant classic for arcade lovers.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
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, while stylistically interesting and unique, amounts to little more than a frustrating take on the Metroidvania genre in the long run.
Nightmare 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 However, strict adherence to outdated gameplay tropes and questionable narrative pacing make this a difficult game to recommend to everyone, especially with the abundance of other high quality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.
