Game: Brain Meltdown: Into Despair
Genre: Action, Adventure, Arcade, Platformer
System: Nintendo Switch (also available for Steam, Windows)
Developer|Publisher: CFK
Age Rating: EU 3+ | US E10+
Price: US $7.99 | UK £6.59 | EU € 6,56
Release Date: October 28th, 2021
Review code provided with many thanks to CFK
Brain Meltdown: Into Despair is a pretty platformer for one or two players. The premise is that a single player controls both characters, or two players each control one character. The two traverse through plenty of strange and beautiful backgrounds, jumping over enemies, spikes, and holes.
The Story and Gameplay
On the Switch, at least, each character is controlled by one Joy-Con, and the player can either use the buttons or the directional sticks to move, jump and duck. After reaching a checkpoint, players have to throw themselves at enemies, obstacles and hope to come out alive at the other end of the checkpoint before one (or both) of their characters are killed.
There doesn’t seem to be much of a storyline here, but the game is beautiful. The tiny main characters are as cute as buttons, but I don’t know their names or their stories.
The Pros of Brain Meltdown: Into Despair
This game is so cute and pretty! If you like adorable little platformers that are very difficult, this is a good game to delve into. Its small price point will give hours of cutesy jumping fun for anyone who digs this sort of thing. Many reviews on Steam are positive, calling Brain Meltdown things like “relaxing,” “cute,” and “interesting.”
It’s really short, and players can pick it up, play for a few moments, then put it down without worrying about losing out or forgetting your place. The game is challenging, and that is appealing to a certain audience. Even easy mode, which is the easiest mode of the three possible modes, is mind-blowingly hard.
The Cons of Meltdown: Into Despair
I had my husband help play this game with me to test out the multiplayer. His response to the game was, and I quote: “It’s like someone played Celeste and misunderstood what made that game fun.” The Steam version of this title is a lot more fun, but the Switch controls are not accurate enough for the type of precision needed for the game. All the pretty music and pretty backgrounds can’t make up for the wonky controls.
Did I mention that this game is hard? It’s very, very hard, like Dark Souls kind of hard. Getting to checkpoints takes forever; if you’re really good at this sort of game, I can see it being appealing, but I am not very good at platformers in general.
Conclusion
I was not too fond of this game, but I am also not this game’s target audience. My left hand is not coordinated enough to control another character with another Joy-Con, and I have a feeling that I would have had a lot more fun with a keyboard.
That being said, it is cute, it’s pretty, and it’s a very reasonable price. So I think for the right person, this game is a worthwhile investment.
Final Verdict: I’m Not Sure.Â
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