Recently, I bought a few Switch games I've been meaning to get for some time, including the Castlevania Dominus Collection and Grapple Dogs: Cosmic Canines (review coming shortly) from this year. However, on a complete whim, I also decided to check out Curse Crackers, a pretty under-the-radar game that I've been hearing really good things about. Little did I realize that I was going to be in for one of the best platformers I've played all year.
Curse Crackers: For Whom The Belle Toils is the second game by an indie studio named Colorgrave, who've gained a bit of a following for their intricate world-building. They've made three games so far and they all take place in the same two universes, though I've only played Curse Crackers so I can't exactly say how they connect. Thankfully, I can say this game generally still manages to hold up pretty well on its own merits, starting you off easy with its simple premise before building up the lore from there, like all the best games do. That being said, the true ending does kinda leave a decent amount of mysteries and plot points left open which I'm assuming will be addressed in later games? Anyway, Curse Crackers has you play as an acrobat named Belle whose boyfriend is taken by her rival Bonnie, and now you have to set out on an adventure to save him. Across the adventure, you meet all sorts of colorful characters and learn about this unique magical world.
But before I get into all the narrative stuff, it's important to start with the gameplay. Curse Crackers is a fast-paced platformer with an aesthetic harkening back to the Game Boy Color. Belle can run, jump, and is able to toss her little bell friend Chime at enemies, but that's only the tip of the iceberg. Being an acrobat, Belle is able to do a ton of different moves from a crouching jump, to a long jump, to vaulting across enemies, to bouncing off of Chime to reach higher heights, Cappy style. All of these moves flow seamlessly between each other and it allows for some of the wildest schmovement I've ever seen in a 2D platformer. The stages are perfectly built for allowing you to speedrun through them too, and the movement is so fun and well-calibrated that I purposefully went out of my way to attempt the timed challenges solely because it was just that enjoyable. At its best, there's an incredible sense of flow to Curse Crackers as you precisely bounce across enemies and fly through tough platforming segments without slowing down. As many have said, if you have a good movement system in your platformer, you've basically done half the work, and even then, Curse Crackers overdelivers.
The level design in Curse Crackers is also pretty great all around. There's tons of hidden nooks and crannies hiding collectibles for the more exploration-minded folks like myself, but as I mentioned, they're also meticulously laid out to encourage speedrunning, and pulling off a bounce chain across a series of enemies always feels really satisfying. Each stage also introduces at least one new gameplay mechanic to mess around with, all of which slowly get more developed across the rest of the game, which really helps to keep the stages within each world feeling varied and dynamic. There's even a few secret character swaps from time to time, but to elaborate on them would be going into spoiler territory. The boss fights are also surprisingly good, as despite mostly utilizing a simple three-hit structure, they all introduce fun gimmicks and wrinkles to help them stand out, from the incredibly goofy guitar battle against Riff, to the soccer fight against Ardas, to some truly wild postgame fights.
So even on its own merits, Curse Crackers is an incredibly fun and well-designed platformer with satisfying movement, fun level design, and just enough variety to keep things feeling fresh and interesting. But then, there's all the side content. Curse Crackers has an absolute metric ton of collectibles scattered across its world. Each stage has three hidden roses along with three challenge medals which task you to beat its Melee-inspired break the targets room, beat the best time, and hit the goal from as far away as possible. But even outside of that, there's a whole bunch of other collectibles ranging from hidden swords, to lore books, to achievements that grant you color palette skins for Belle and banners for the menus, to unlockable artifacts you can bring along with you to make levels easier or harder, to multiple hidden harder worlds. And that's not even getting into the extensive multi-phase postgame that almost feels like a second game in itself, with exclusive areas, tucked-away superbosses, a second ending, and a bunch of hidden tickets so tucked away that the Colorgrave Discord needed to band together to even figure out where they were. There's even an unlockable Arcade Mode that encourages you survive through each stage back-to-back. You can easily beat the main campaign with only like 30% of the game completed, that's how massive this game is.
But despite its gargantuan size, all the collectibles feel meaningful in uncovering the many secrets of Ledarma. It's honestly staggering just how fleshed-out this world feels, there's so many memorable, fleshed-out, and well-defined NPCs with their own individual conflicts, desires, and subplots. The sheer amount of completely optional and situational dialogue exchanges you can stumble upon in this game is immensely impressive, and I love how most of the characters will show up in several of the game's many hub areas as it really helps create the sense that Ledarma is this living, breathing, cohesive world. Thankfully, the charming and thoughtful dialogue makes interacting with Curse Crackers' cast feel like an absolute joy, and I got genuinely invested in and attached to most of these side characters. But it's also not all just for show, as if you really take the time to engage with the rest of the cast, you'll even trigger a good number of sidequests, many of which even have
their own unique stages and minigames accompanying them. I just love how the sheer ambition that goes into the world-building feels totally aligned with the gonzo spirit that I've praised in my Game Boy Color games. There was no reason this already fun action platformer also needed to have Falcom levels of intricacy in its world-building, but it truly elevates Curse Crackers into something special.
On top of that, the presentation is pretty much spot-on. Curse Crackers looks like the idealized version of a Game Boy Color game in the same way something like Shovel Knight would for the NES, boasting a lovely pastel color palette and utterly adorable chibi character sprites, but also some cool modern embellishments like parallax scrolling and widescreen. Special mention needs to go to the many wonderful character designs that span a wide variety of species, along with each having a number of cute portrait shots for dialogue exchanges. I also think Curse Crackers is just a perfect fit on the Switch, not only running pretty much flawlessly but complementing its portable nature incredibly smoothly. The soundtrack is also quite solid, going for this unique blend of GBC chiptune and modern instruments like guitar and synth. Most of the level themes are quite addictive, and there's a wide variety of unique event themes that further helps to build out the world.
As far as gripes go, my only real issue is with the inventory system. So Curse Crackers has a whole bunch of different items you can equip ranging from useful artifacts to food that you can use to augment Chime's abilities, however you can only hold one at a time. This is kind of an issue since several stages have multiple collectibles locked behind the food, pretty much demanding multiple runthroughs to even be able to get anything. It also doesn't help that many of these inventory items cost money, and you can only hold up to 999 coins. Considering that many purchasable items in this game can go up to the 100s, it adds this bizarre element of money management to the game that isn't especially fun to engage with. One notable quest tasks you with paying 2400 coins in 600 coin intervals, and since you couldn't stockpile your cash in any way, it just turned into a grindfest. None of these issues are deal-breakers though, they just make going for 100% a tad more annoying than it probably should've been. And as mentioned above, the true ending is kind of a "What Now?" ending that leaves a decent amount of stuff hanging, but not too much that I was left super unsatisfied.
But otherwise, yeah, Curse Crackers is shockingly good. This is one of those platformers that just checks all of the right boxes for me. It's got satisfying movement, fun level design, creative bosses, a metric ton of side content, fantastic visuals, catchy music, a lovable cast of characters, and an impressively fleshed-out world with a ton of lore hidden under the surface. Curse Crackers punches far above its weight and somehow manages to accomplish pretty much all of its goals and then some, making for one of the freshest platforming experiences I've played in a long time.
And in case all that still isn't enough, Curse Crackers is only $15! For this much content and this much quality, it's an absolute steal if I do say so myself.
5/5 Stars
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