Awesome Pea 3 is the final, single-screen precision platformer that costs $5. While it has the most production values out of the trilogy, the wildly swinging difficulty factor will have you exclaiming four letter words you didn’t know existed.
I couldn’t stream my play time of Awesome Pea 3 because it would have been banned with all the profanity. At its surface, it seems like a simple platformer – just reach the exit point. But this is much easier said than done because many stages demand precision.
There are two big changes with this three-quel over the original pea-green colored games. First is the visual theme. Now outfitted with vivid color and weather effects, this is the most impressive looking of the Awesome Peas. At the same time, I think I could do without some of the visual flare, like the pouring rain, because it can make it a little difficult to distinguish platform from background at times. It looks good but it unnecessarily over does it at times. Oh yeah, and the pea looks much more like a pineapple with a short haircut now.
The other big change is the ability to wall climb. The first few stages try to teach the player this new mechanic, how you need to press against the wall, then hold up to glide upward. With as much time as I spent with this game, it never fully clicked. In a no pressure situation, it is much easier to perform this wall climb. However, when pressured with quick timings and precision leaps, this wall climb can easily result in inconsistent deaths.
Eventually the stage designs demand more from the player. Not only are some standard jumps demanding, the difficulty can spike when combined with dashing and double jump feathers. Strangely, the difficulty is oddly inconsistent. It is common to blow through a few stages with only a few retries but then get stuck on a tedious level that can easily see 50+ deaths.
If you enjoy challenging platformers, Awesome Pea 3 will undoubtedly scratch that itch while pleasing your wallet even though there are no options or replay value (collecting all the coins then reaching the exit will pop all Cheevos). However, there is a fine line between challenge, fun, and frustration. And this sequel, although it looks the prettiest, can frustratingly swing between all these emotions within seconds.
More Impressive Looking Than: the first two titles
Better Than: higher priced prevision platformers
Wait For It: Mildly Approachable Plum
By: Zachary Gasiorowski, Editor in Chief myGamer.com
Twitter: @ZackGaz
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RATING
OUR RATING - 6
6
SCORE
A sequel that is essentially more of the same but can offer a mediocre level of entertainment if you are into precision “git gud” platformers.