GladMort

A successful Kickstarter last year brought a new arcade flavoured game to Neo Geo. For those of us who don't own such a console, Gladmort has now been converted to a fresher console and if you're looking for a Ghouls 'n Ghosts-esque game, complete with high difficulty, continues and credits, then GladMort could certainly be for you. For me, it only took a few hours to realise that this was not for me at all.

Chaos reigns in a forgotten kingdom and in the role of the knight Gladmort, you have to try to set everything right. On side-scrolling tracks you control the knight, who can only withstand two blows before losing a life, avoiding obstacles, jumping between platforms and defeating all sorts of enemies. The whole thing really does look like an arcade game from a bygone era, and it almost feels wrong to experience it on a big modern OLED TV. You can even switch on different filters to make it feel more like a CRT TV, for example, if that's what you want. But it is mainly the game design that tells you what era they wanted to recreate; a bunch of lives and the word credits standing at the bottom of the screen through five levels where your hero can only withstand two hits. It is a real challenge tailor-made for those who are looking for just that. Completely moulded in a concept that strives to be as faithful to classic arcade games as possible.

And yes, it absolutely is. If you find this interesting, you can kind of stop reading here, pay a cheap buck and get that experience. For me, it's mainly very uninspired level design that gets in the way of finding myself excited. Also, it spices up the journey with as many on-screen enemies as possible to create a high level of difficulty. At your disposal you can find a bunch of different weapons like axes, spears and other medieval favourites - but the attacks feel sluggish and the game's hit box is often questionable. The challenge becomes more frustrating than it feels fair, where it's usually easier to just run forwards and try to jump over all the baddies to get to the boss waiting at the end of the track.

Thankfully, there are some checkpoints along the way. So it becomes a lesson in memorising everything, finding a pattern in how enemies move and moving forward. But the uninspired paths didn't make it very fun. There are a few ladders, jumps or areas that are a little harder to reach where you can find a new weapon. But otherwise, it's simply just levels that switch up the visual design a bit and throw new types of enemies at you.

It's the pixels and the visual design that are probably the main attraction and yes, it's absolutely beautiful. At the same time, we have become quite spoilt with this kind of flirtation with retro so it is currently difficult to say that it feels unique or exciting. The soundscape also strives for that classic feel but I won't say that the melodies are particularly memorable or enhance the experience. For anyone who plays this type of classic arcade, the music is the simple means that also become a strength and if you had a little more memorable tones, it would have been a little more fun.

In a way, it feels a bit sad to be mean to GladMort. Because if the ambition is to create a new game for the Neo Geo format and for it to feel like a flirtation with the past, well then at least that bit is done with gusto. As I mentioned earlier, many people are guaranteed to be attracted by that premise and then you know what you get. For myself, I got bored after an hour or so of trying again because, since there's no saving, it's a challenge that you have to do in one sitting. I tend to have a feeling that I judge games a lot by how excited I feel about starting up the title and having a gaming session and that was almost completely absent here, unfortunately.