Disclaimer: I received a copy of Twin Robots: Ultimate Edition on the Nintendo Switch free of charge from Thinice Games through IndieGamerChick's #IndieXmas2018. The game was given without expectation or promise of a good review, only that the game be played as soon as possible and to post about it on social media and talk about the game in general.
Twin Robots: Ultimate Edition is a puzzle platformer where you control two robots, but not at the same time, and help them escape to an exit. Essentially that is it. However, that escape comes two fold. The first part of the escape is to free your twin who is trapped in a single room chamber with a lowering ceiling threatening to crush them. It is up to the one robot that starts outside of the room to quickly (and safely) run, jump, and climb throughout the stage looking for a large red button that will stop the ceiling from its fall and open the door. There is also the added complexity that each robot has a life/energy meter that is slowly used up with each action. Any time the robot runs, jumps, hangs, and in some cases comes into contact with certain obstacles, their life/battery power is drained, forcing the player to pay attention to their life, the falling ceiling above their twin, and where they are going. Then at the end of the stage, you still need 100 units of power required to open the exit.
The first thing that stuck out to me about TR:UE is how good the game looks. Considering that this is an indie game that retails for $7.99 on Nintendo's eShop. Then I felt a bit guilty for thinking that just because the game is independently developed and published that it cannot look good, but coming off of games like Jack N' Jill DX and Devious Dungeon, which do have good looking yet simplified 2D graphics, seeing TR:UE with its Unity rendered 3D characters and environment in a 2D space looked really nice.
I am presently about halfway through the 40 levels in the game, with each level being only slightly more complicated than the one previous, or simply adding in a new mechanic to be used in later levels. Thinice has done a really good job in the pacing department, not introducing a new type of trap or element that is out of place or unsolvable after an attempt or two at the level. From about Level 12 and on though, the difficulty has increased quite a bit more than previous levels, but has never seemed unfair. As the levels progress, they have become longer in length, often times having the large red exit button at a distance that can be reached by one of two routes, with one being significantly shorter than the other, but ever so slightly hidden away. And speaking of hidden away, in each level there is a battery, which I am pretty sure gives you a boost to your current power levels, but it is also something to collect that has a finite amount in each stage and since there is a counter, I have a need to find it and collect them. the same with the blue energy pads that only turn on once you set your partner free.
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| Running towards what I hope is going to be the red safety b |
Now, TR:UE can be a co-op game with one player controlling the white robot and one the black robot. Each stage starts off with a different robot in the chamber with the falling ceiling so if you are playing co-op, you will not run the risk of the same person being in the solitary chamber each and every game. That being said, I have not played co-op, but instead have controlled both robots myself, albeit at separate times, although I presume that in co-op, both robots can be controlled simultaneously. Maybe I'm missing out?
Lastly I want to briefly talk about the music, composed by Levi Bond. While there is not a wide variety of music in TR:UE, what is there perfectly suits the game, the play style, the not quite frantic search for the red button tunes that is needed for this type of game. To me, it is almost as if Thomas Was Alone and Portal had a little soundtrack baby and this is what come out. And now that I think about it, I do kind of get Portal 2 co-op vibes from TR:UE, possibly because it is/can be a co-op game where two robots are tested to escape a chamber using their jumping skills, pushing/pulling boxes, and pushing buttons to open doors.
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| Smushed! |
My one and (currently) only issue with the game is when your character gets smashed/ crushed/ impaled/ drained of power. When you die, the game holds for a second or two before it brings up a Continue?/Quit? screen. As in, there is plenty of time to hit pause bringing up its own Continue/Options/Quit screen, which is often times faster than waiting for the game to do it for you. It games like TR:UE, BIT.TRIP.RUNNER, and Jack N' Jill DX where you have infinite lives, having to wait as little as possible between dying and restarting the stage is significantly important in order for the player to maintain momentum and drive to complete the stage after being killed.
So, even though I have yet to finish Twin Robots: Ultimate Edition, I have definitely been enjoying it as a single player experience. The levels (that I have played) have been thoughtfully constructed and laid out usually lasting between 1 minute and 4 minutes to complete, the music is perfectly suited to the stages, and the difficultly seems to be on point without being too easy or agonizingly hard.
~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
I Am No Longer A Human
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