Curse Crackers: For Whom the Belle Toils

I want a Chime plush

I've just fully completed everything the game has to offer, and I loved every second of it. Throughout the the 30ish hours I put into the curse crackers I was delighted with each and every new development. The cool tech I had to uncover to speedrun levels on time (grave mask my beloved), the saturday morning cartoon level plot jam packed with a surprising amount of cool world building, the downright stellar soundtrack, and a shockingly in-depth arcade mode all came together to create a game I struggled to put down. There was so much care and passion pumped into this game by the devs and it *shows*. If you are at all interested in games like celeste, shovel knight, or super meatboy this is perfectly up your alley; as curse crackers is at least on their level of polish and charm, if not a wee bit higher. I'll most certainly be going back to play the rest of color grave's catalog now that I'm finished here. If any of their previous games have this level of polish to them, I'm sure I'll ...

Pretty fun platformer with a really unique bounce mechanic. 8/10

Most of the other reviews cover most aspects pretty well, so I’ll just say that the quality of this game is just as good as the dev’s first game (Prodigal), but obviously not in all the same ways since they’re different genres. You don’t really need to play that game to get the most out of this game; it can be played standalone just fine. It’s about half as long as Prodigal if you’re trying to do everything, and the difficulty is moderate (and tailored further using various items or not) even for the post-game content. Just like Prodigal, the game has a variety of secrets, but don’t feel like you need to find them all yourself. It’s definitely okay to look at a guide for some of them. Definitely would recommend it, although probably not to just anybody. Maybe to people who have played Prodigal or people who have played other platformers and are looking for a solid experience that isn’t a metroidvania or roguelike.

Really charming 2D game boy inspired platform. looks very charming, writing is charming and it feels good to press buttons

At first I was like, "hey, this is a pretty cute GBC styled 2d platformer with some real fun movement" and then it kept going, and going, and it kept surprising me with hidden nooks and crannies, levels, quests, lore, there's just. SO MUCH??? i got to the first "Credits" while collecting everything i could and i'm JUST 57% done??? HOW??? Legitimately, more people need to talk about this game, i'm seriously baffled by the fact this fell under everyone's radar. NAB IT NOW

+++ Razor-sharp controls. +++ Huge amount of secrets and side content. +++ Gorgeous pixel art animations. +++ Memorable music. --- Not for the casual player. Getting to the end of the main story of this one will take roughly 6 hours, fresh. Add about 10 more hours to do all of the side content, and its myriads of little stories and extra levels. This perfected little gem of gameboy-like gaming is vivid, vibrant, and bright in everything it does. The challenge ramp-up is fairly even, though it's worth noting that the higher echelons definitely rank into the hardcore tier of required skill level. Even so, getting there is an absolute joy, and it's likely that one will reach farther than they thought they would've been capable of. A diamond in the world of retro-style titles.

Curse Crackers is a platformer with incredibly satisfying movement mechanics that are so fun to mess around with and have a ton of room to express yourself with. Bursting with charm and has a lot of content to discover in both the main story and afterwards. You play as Belle: a former circus acrobat along with her floating companion Chime and platform across 5 main worlds (and a good few others) in an attempt to get your date back from your old friend/ rival Bonnie. Along the way you can help out the townsfolk with their plights. The story is straightforward but the characters are all quite enjoyable to speak to and see their stories unfold. [strike] Quite fond of Barax myself as an unashamed dad joke enthusiast. [/strike] Belle’s move-set is incredibly robust with standard moving and jumping alongside vaulting, high jumps and the myriad of options that chime brings to the table. There is a bit of a learning curve but I found it quick to adapt to and satisfying to learn and improv...