There are games that are released that are meant to play on nostalgia. There are games that are released that are supposed to take full advantage of retro console to made modern classics. Then there are games that come out and try to do all those things and manage to miss the point and end up in the brush and confuse everyone on just what the original goal was. That is exactly what happened with Nogalious.

Nogalious is a single screen puzzle platformer game in which each screen must be cleared by grabbing a key then reaching the exit. It is perfectly fine if the game wants to start off with a challenge, something akin to the classics where even drops of water can kill the player—that atmosphere that the title appears to be going for. The problem becomes when screens need to be cleared in such a way that become entirely unclear on how to proceed, that every way out after collecting the key simply kills the player character. Either through poor instructions, or poor design there is simply no clues on how to proceed.

This game is broken. The controller doesn’t work. The Steam overlay appears for no reason. And there is no way to beat the fourth screen.

Difficulty is forgivable, as when a game is designed around that it is more of a challenge and can be enjoyable. The problems become how poorly the game itself functions as a whole. During play the D-Pad on the controller didn’t work for the first half of the run, then suddenly started. Then later on the fourth screen I simply became stuck with no way out of the area. After some quick online searching it became clear that the game itself was bugged as the vines in the room were supposed to grow back, but simply weren’t.

There is no excuse for this. The controller is annoying and might be something that could be worked around if the game was good enough, although it isn’t. The game breaking bugs where things don’t function on a basic level to allow progression isn’t something that can be ignored. More time was spent trying to figure out what the solution to this “puzzle” was then the rest of the experience. The actual solution was that the game was at fault, but at no time was that clear.

Avoid this game. Don’t give it the time of day or any thought. The most that should be considered about it is watching the stream linked below to watch our misery playing it. This isn’t worth a Steam sale, or experiencing for “just a laugh”. Things that don’t function as intended aren’t even worth your time of day. That is unless you want to watch other suffer through it.

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