Game Reviews

Stardash

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Stardash
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It’s a testament to Stardash's fiendishly demanding platforming that we conducted lengthy controller experiments to gain pixel-perfect control.

In the end, the PS3’s reliable-D-pad defeated the Xbox 360’s chubbier version, while we banished the thought of slippery touchscreen controls from our minds altogether.

However you play it, Stardash is an affectionate nod to the glory days of the first Game Boy, with lashings of greyscale sprites and chipper chiptunes. It’s just a shame that the seriously brutal difficulty curve will deter all but the most determined of platforming addicts.

Star jumps

Shade-wearing dude Johnny Retro is on a mission to, well, that’s not made clear, but he’s certainly got to collect a lot of coins and bounce on a lot of enemy heads along the way.

Meganoid developer Orange Pixel’s latest is 2D platforming at its purest, echoing the likes of Super Mario World in both its cute style and its deceptively unforgiving gameplay.

There are four worlds, packed with nine levels apiece, to leap through - each with its own soundtrack, backgrounds, and unique enemies. If 36 levels sounds a little light, bear in mind that completing this game is a challenge akin to walking to the North Pole wearing only a smile.

The first few stages are straightforward enough, but from the second world onwards the difficulty curve takes a turn for the vertical. Most levels take only a minute to complete, but it’s not unlikely that you'll spend 30 of them rote learning every leap, bounce, and hazard (many, like man-eating plants, cribbed from Nintendo’s copybook) before you make it to the end.

Plug-in baby

The three-button touchscreen controls (with movement icons on the left and a large 'jump' button on the right) are easy to pick-up, although they soon prove unequal to the game’s ruthless, pixel-perfect leaping.

At crucial moments, it’s too easy to slip and miss a button, or graze the 'left' or 'right' arrows when standing on the edge of a precipice.

To compensate, Stardash offers support for pretty much every physical control option (from Bluetooth and USB controllers to the Xperia Play’s slide-out pad) to ensure you can control Johnny with near pinpoint accuracy.

Deadly coin drops

Simply getting from A to B in Stardash can be a fraught experience, crammed with opportunities for instadeath, but survival is not your only goal.

There are bonuses available for completing levels before the cruelly short timer reaches zero and collecting every coin, many of which are sadistically placed between hazards or on disappearing platforms.

There’s undoubtedly a lot of replayability here, with some bags of retro appeal for those schooled in the 8-bit era (even the jingle played when collecting coins stirs, probably copyrighted, memories of Mario’s early outings).

The problem is that the prohobitive difficulty might deter casual players, or even some more hardened platform fans.

Too often, Stardash expects you to perform sequences of immaculately timed manoeuvres (race beneath crushing rock, bounce off a crumbling platform, dodge a spear from above, and land squarely on the enemy’s head) that require rote learning and flawless execution.

This may simply be a leap too far for those without stacks of time to invest, not to mention a decent controller to plug-in.

Stardash

It’s got stacks of Game Boy-esque retro appeal, but Stardash’s cheery looks belie ruthless difficulty levels that would make Super Meat Boy wince
Score
Paul Devlin
Paul Devlin
A newspaper reporter turned games journo, Paul's first ever console was an original white Game Boy (still in working order, albeit with a yellowing tinge and 30 second battery life). Now he writes about Android with a style positively dripping in Honeycomb, stuffed with Gingerbread and coated with Froyo