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PONCHO
Released On: Nov 3, 2015
63
3.6
All Platforms
Based on 4 Critic Reviews
62
Wii U
Based on 3 Critic Reviews
tbd
Based on 11 Critic Reviews
63
PlayStation Vita
tbd
Metascore
Mixed or average
Based on 11 Critic Reviews
63
36% Positive
4 Reviews
4 Reviews
64% Mixed
7 Reviews
7 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Metascore
Mixed or average
Based on 11 Critic Reviews
63
36% Positive
4 Reviews
4 Reviews
64% Mixed
7 Reviews
7 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
For a game so mechanically simple, it’s one of the better experiences out there — four-letter swear words and all.
There are times in which Poncho could've used some smoothing over, like with glitches or painfully missed jumps. That said, it's still an entertaining little treat for the retro crowd, especially those seeking something different from the usual platformer.
User Reviews
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We recommend trying its demo before buying it, since it has some ups and downs that prevent it from achieving something better. Still, Poncho is an interesting concept that works, and leaves us waiting to see what the team behind it can offer in the future.
Poncho’s world is colorful, with visual depth and great music that help bring it to life. Unfortunately the platforming doesn’t live up to its potential.
Poncho is memorable with its lush pixel art and catchy music but also for its frustrating level design relying on a single infuriating mechanic.
A disappointment considering its potential. [Jan 2016, p.94]
As fun as often as it is frustrating, Poncho is a hard game to recommend, even to 16-bit platformer super fans. You may be able to get some enjoyment out of it, and it certainly has an oddball charm, but ultimately, it fails to impress where it counts.
The game's core gimmick seems quite promising - it's a 2D platformer in which you can flit "in" and "out" of the screen between 3 different parallax layers of scenery - but unfortunately the design and execution are both lousy. Seriously, I haven't seen a platformer where you can get trapped in an "infinite death loop" since Jet Set Willy on the ZX Spectrum ... but it happened 3 times in my first hour of play.
OK, the game gives you infinite lives, and there is seemingly no penalty for dying - and you can pause the game and quit back to the level selection screen at any time - but these are just desperate attempts to paper over the cracks in the game's broken coding.
The "layers" idea is fundamentally flawed in its execution. You frequently can't see where you are, due to foreground layers obscuring your view, and it's ultimately just plain NOT FUN. The game's exploration relies on coloured keys, bought in a "shop", to gate your progress ... meaning you spend time navigating its convoluted levels only to reach a brick wall - a gate, requiring a key you don't have - with no way of knowing in advance which colour key you were going to need. You then you have no choice but to quit out of the level or backtrack laboriously, get the colour of key you need, and then backtrack again. Does that sound like fun to you? If navigating the levels was fun, it wouldn't be so bad, but it's not. It's a grinding chore.
Other problems include the on-screen text (character speech bubbles) being ridiculously small; the "in" and "out" buttons being inexplicably mapped to "L1" and "R1" (buttons placed to the left and right of each other, when it would be far more intuitive to map them to "L1" and "L2" or "R1" and "R2" - y'know, buttons where the placement actually corresponds to the direction of travel!); glitchy scenery that (ironically) can't decide what's in front of what, leading to bits of scenery flickering in and out of existence as you move; leaps of faith where you can't see what's below you (you can pan the scenery left and right a bit, but not up and down); foreground layers obscuring your view ... the list just goes on and on. Even the way the character interacts with something as simple as a slope is semi-broken, with your character inexplicably sliding down to the height of the next scenery "block" - amateur coding.
It all just feels shoddy and unfinished, and - most damningly - the game's core "gimmick" just doesn't work in practice. I paid less than £2 for this in a sale, and - being a long-time fan of 2D platform games - I thought I could overlook a few flaws and get some enjoyment out of it, especially at that price. After an hour of being repeatedly disgusted with the poor design and execrable coding, I deleted it, knowing I'd never return.
Report
PlayStation 4
Summary A robot, a poncho and a journey of discovery! Make your way through this world of pixelated parallax platforming to solve the ultimate puzzle: who is Poncho? The world is ruined; mankind is gone and all that remains are robots. But for Poncho, the adventure is just beginning! Explore an open world full of colourful characters, leaping...
Rated E
for Everyone
Platforms:
- PC
- Wii U
- PlayStation 4
- PlayStation Vita
Initial Release Date: Nov 3, 2015
Developer:
- Delve Interactive
Publisher: Rising Star Games
Genres:
