Because I voiced the narrator in this game, I am going to attempt to stay as unbiased as possible. Again, ATTEMPT!
The Narrator is a ♥♥♥♥ is your standard difficult platformer that, as quite a few have mentioned, is very similar to games like Kaizo Mario and I Wanna Be The Guy. Right from the very start, I rips a page right out of the I Wanna Be The Guy playbook. With a set of spikes on one side, and a apple that comes down on you like a great god above and ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ destroys you, and every fibre of your being. And in the title, it already tells you what the game is about, and what it has; an ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ narrator.
The whole point of the game is to be a difficult game with a narrator smack-talking you, adding further salt to the wound. Now, when making a game where the narrator is the soul point of the game, it is very difficult to have it be both funny and dynamic at the same time. This is where the game's first real flaw rears its ugly head. The point of the narrator is to piss you off, and all that, obviously. But there are times where you can't quite tell whether the narrator repeating the same line after you die is on purpose or not. But either way, it is a genuine problem because throughout the game, the difficulty in the gameplay itself is fair. It actually telegraphs most of the obstacles and where they are, so when you die it feels frustrating, but you know it's your fault for it. But the narrator repeating the same line of dialogue to when you started out in the level is genuinely infuriating. And the lines interrupting themselves can be a little awkward, but a lot of that can be bogged down to being the player's fault for that.
Now, one argument to this, is to simply turn off the narrator volume in the settings! But that doesn't work very well when THE NARRATOR BEING THERE IS THE POINT OF THE GAME AND WHAT MAKES IT SPECIAL. When you take it out, it loses a lot of its charm. So I feel like the line played at the beginning should only ever be played once. This may be fixed later on after this review being posted, so this might be a little outdated, but whatevs.
The rest of the positivity from the narrator, I can't really say. Honestly, it's mainly because I don't wanna fellate myself or my voice work for this. I had a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of fun recording for this game, though. And I loved being in this game, and am so unbelievably happy about the reception on the voice work and the improv I put in. As of this review, this is my personal favorite piece of voice work I've done.
The gameplay is very simple. That is certainly not a bad thing. One dude once said to me that this game is a little like I Wanna Be The Guy without a double jump. Which I think is a fair enough analogy! It doesn't really explain its controls, and it certainly doesn't need to. I have this thing with games that don't have a tutorial. It lets the player figure the controls out, and adds to the dickish element to the game. Its level of difficulty, as I said earlier, is ironically quite fair. Except, when there's awkward frame skips and moments when your character falls through the floor occasionally. I also feel like this will be fixed later on as well. The gameplay itself is very good, and the level design is damn fine. The last few levels kicked my ass so hard it threw me into the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ orbit.
The music is bleh. It's good for a little while, but it starts getting repetitive real fast. It's also loud as ♥♥♥♥ compared to the narrator, making him hard to hear. Thankfully, you can turn it down so it's easier to hear the narrator being an ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ to ya! Or, you can do what I like to do, and straight-up turn off the music and replace it with classical music. It makes the experience more hilarious and is recommended. Or you can play whatever music ya like really I'm not gonna dictate what music you think works heh :)
Overall tho, this game is ♥♥♥♥♥♥' great. It's not without its faults, certainly, but the moments is has is worth getting this game alone. It's a fun-ass ride that will kick your ass so ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ hard that your ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ will implode into itself from getting kicked so ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ hard. This game will ♥♥♥♥ every part of your senses. It will piss you off so hard that you might actually throw your monitor out of your window in a fit of hysteric rage. I still can't get past that ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ final boss to this day. Christ, Adam, you have made a monster, and I love you for it.
That, is why I recommend this game.
