Guacamelee! has a distinctive graphical design coupled with vibrant colours, which while it isn't instant love, you will start to grow to love it. It suits the tone of the game well and meshes with all other elements perfectly. The music is great, being upbeat and pushes the game along. The game is mainly a side scroller beat 'em up with a heavy dose of platforming. This is a great combination, the fighting mechanics and controls are smooth while the platforming is challenging, but not hard to the point of frustration. There will be a few areas where you will try the platforming a few times but you know what to do and it is just pulling off the timing and button combinations. It progressively gets harder later in the game and some areas require multiple button presses in different order that can get confusing just due to how many moves there are. You know in your head how to do it, it's just getting your fingers to press the right buttons at the right time.
The enemies have variety and you're constantly introduced to new ones. This, coupled with frequent unlocks of new moves and the game does not allow itself to get stale or repetitive. The platforming challenges in the last level required more trial and error and timing, testing all your skills up to this point, although they were nothing compared to the orb collectible challenges... The combat is deeper than you'd expect with a wide variety of moves and chaining them together perfectly requires precise timing and skills. The structure of the game feels similar to classic games of yore; the boss battles have patterns and are interesting. As you progress through each boss, the important of recognising the patterns increases, to the point where you have to die at each boss several times to get a feel for their moves. The environment and stage designs are clever, there are secrets all over the place and it's a lot of fun exploring them to find all the chests. The areas are big with multiple paths. This is one of those games that tease you with side paths but that you cannot access them right now, rather, you have to wait until you gain the ability later on in the game and then backtrack
In addition, there are various sidequests (all of which are short and easy) to divert your attention to. The story is basic but it provides enough motivation for the player to find out what is going to happen next. There is no voice acting, only dialogue bubbles (no big loss). Perhaps one of the standouts is the humour. It took me completely by surprise by how good it was. The dialogue, character quirks and actions, they all blend in with the designs and storytelling that you can't wait to see what funny scene is going to come up next. The game has a lot of charm in this area and this is one of the biggest factors for the player to move forward. Just when you thought that it'll be as funny as it gets, something would pop up that will exceed your expectations. The ending was sad... both the regular and alternate ending, although they were sad in a bittersweet way (it was still a happy ending). Overall, this is a great game that I enjoyed very much.
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