Downwell
Year: 2019
Rating: E10+
Time Played: 10+ hours
Outside of the games Nintendo makes for their own consoles, there aren’t a lot of games from outside developers that take advantage of the system’s unique properties. I first learned about Downwell from Game Maker’s Tool Kit and thought it looked like an interesting way to use the Switch. Because you can remove the joycons, the screen can be used vertically, giving a much more natural orientation to play this extremely vertical game. Fortunately, Downwell goes on sale fairly frequently and you’ll likely only be out a few bucks for a game with a significant challenge.
As with other Devolver Digital games like Gato Roboto, Downwell leans into its retro pixel monochrome aesthetic. Things move pretty fast when in a constant free-fall, so it’s important to have high contrast visuals to make important things stand out. If anything, the limited graphics aren’t an issue because the gameplay loop is so addicting. I even bought a Flip Grip so I could hold the Switch more naturally in the vertical configuration just to play this game. The problem is, this game felt brutally hard to me.
I’ll admit that I didn’t actually finish Downwell. The farthest I ever got was the first few parts of the fourth world, which was close enough to the end for me to make an honest review. Perhaps my reaction times aren’t what they used to be, but even when I tried to learn the best tactics to beat the game, the random procedurally generated levels always seemed to catch me off guard enough times that I rarely survived past the second world. Other roguelikes had better permanent upgrades that would help me get through to the end, but that was the one lacking aspect of Downwell that left me abandoning it without seeing the end through my own efforts.
A difficult game that uniquely uses the Switch hardware, I give Downwell 3.5 stars out of 5.
1/2
