Skelattack

Defend your underground kingdom from human invaders and save the lives of your (dead!) comrades. A traditional platformer that's hard but extremely polished. Need proof? This one is published by Konami.

The 2020s have ushered in a new era of cooperation between big-name publishers and independent video game studios. Skelattack is the first contribution to this noble cause from Konami, who underwrote the game, for reasons that are almost immediately obvious.

The fantastic character design, the ingenious animations, and the level design in general are all pretty outstanding. The game has a cutesy aesthetic, but don't let that lull you into a false sense of security.

You are now in the Underworld: the land of the dead, where life is good!

You'll be playing as Skully, a chilled out cadaver, and his best bat friend, and you'll need to use all of your brain power if you're to repel the evil invasion of living humans, an adventure that will involve a whole lot of jumping, climbing, and slashes with your sword if you're to save the lives – or should that be deaths? – of your friends. You'll need to use your surroundings to your advantage, which might mean using walls, ceilings, and stairways to avoid enemies and traps.

What we have here is a highly polished platform game with a dash of action added in, even though it does contain plenty of text.

And you should know that Skelattack is an extremely demanding game. You'll be getting some real die 'n' retry vibes here, but thankfully there are plenty of checkpoints to stop you tearing your hair out.

One thing you should know: when you die, you lose some of the crystals you've collected. You can use these crystals to upgrade Skully, but you can make it through the game without them.

You can always go and pick them up from the spot where you died, but this can sometimes be risky.

Our advice? There are plenty of alternative paths and secret shortcuts to discover, and while they present a stiffer challenge, they do earn you a nice reward.

We loved the hand drawn artwork and animations. They're genuinely beautiful! The various NPCs have a charm of the own, and a lot of effort has gone into designing Skully's home. The game was developed using the same game engine as Undertale... and it shows.

One for fans of a real challenge!