GR:
I saw Poncho a couple weeks back at a San Francisco event put on by publisher Rising Star Games and hadn't gotten around to a preview write-up before PAX hit. To no real surprise, the game had a long line at Nintendo's pre-PAX Indie Showcase Nindies@Nintendo event. Like a lot of the indies on Nintendo's slate, Poncho aims for a certain retro-cool nostalgia while mixing it with gameplay elements that would have been impossible in the era that it references—and it thoroughly hits the target.
Indie platformer Poncho is a great concept marred by poor puzzle design.
There is no shortage of puzzle-platformers on the downloadable scene, each one with their own retro hook, so standing out from the rest of the scenery can be a daunting task. With one simple push of a button, however, the mechanized titular protagonist of Poncho, just released for the Wii U, can change his position within the pixellated, parallaxing world. Is this clever gameplay mechanic enough to bring himself (and hopefully his game) to the indie foreground?
EB: This is more than likely going to be a week of working through your video game backlog, because there really aren’t many “must-play” games releasing this week. That doesn’t mean that you can’t find a gem in this week’s new video game release lineup, so head on down below to see what’s cooking.
