#IndieSelect: Cosmonauta (NS)

Disclaimer: I received a copy of Cosmonauta for Nintendo Switch through publisher/developer QUByte Interactive through Xinthus' #IndieSelect event late last week.  The game was given and received without the promise of a positive review, only that the game be played and the experience be shared on social media channels.  All of the words and pictures in this article, unless otherwise stated are from my own playthough.

This might sound like a total cop-out, but I genuinely went into Cosmonauta blind because I did not want to know what I was getting into.  I know this probably sounds callous especially since the game was offered free (see above), but aside from seeing the screens that Xinthus posted, I wanted to be surprised. What it looked like to me was a little blue character in space mid-jump and there were some enemy-looking creatures nearby.  The narrative I constructed in my head was that it was some kind of a cross between Super Meat Boy because the camera was pulled back really far with a lot of spikes, and Mega Man because a blue main character jumping in a space-type setting is going to invoke that kind of a reaction from me.

Instead what Cosmonauta turned out to be was a slightly disappointingly non-existent-on-story puzzle-ish platformer in the vein of Super Meat Boy but with floaty controls, spotty platforming, inconsistent level design, and levels that seemed to be crafted around making people on the verge of rage quitting.  Maybe that was a little harsh, but I stand by that.

"Why Am I Here!? What's Going On?"
"Shut Up And Get To The Exit Blue Hero!"

Cosmonauta starts when you select "Start" from the game menu and you are immediately off to the races.  No cutscene explaining what your blue little hero is up to or what any of these traps and spikes are about.  Maybe they were captured and thrust into a series of trials put on by an antagonistic alien society to test the betterment of humankind?  Maybe are blue dude is on the run from bounty hunters? No, from what I can tell after playing 32 of 65 stages is that you are traveling from one area in a room to another and things are trying to kill you along the way.  The only story-bit I could find was on Nintendo's eShop page, which states that "[d]uring a space expedition, our hero experiences issues with the navigation systems on his ship and now needs to face the dangers of the unknown to find his way back."  Now, I am not a game developer, but putting that text on a black screen before the game started could have been a nice touch to start things off.  Maybe this is harsh since in Super Mario Bros. you are thrown into a level without any in-game explanation as to why an angry-looking mushroom is marching toward you with ill intent, and all of the story as we know it was communicated through the instruction booklet.

Something else that bothered me a bit, and not because I did not get past Stage 33, was that to me the controls felt floaty.  What I mean is that the developers did go the Super Mario Bros. route in that the longer you press down B to jump, the higher your jump goes.  Maybe that had something to do with it, but there were times when the jump seemed to be off or I couldn't accurately estimate where I was going to land.  And Cosmonauta being the game it is trying to be, needing to land in just the right spot and if you are off by a pixel or two, then you will die from the shots of green fire.  Coupled with that all of the times I fell through actual platforms to my death was a bit infuriating.  

Most of the jumps that killed me, as illustrated twice above, were times that when paused, clearly shows Blue Hero on the platform that is only moving vertically.  Then in the subsequent animation frames, they fall through to the spikes below.  Maybe it has something to do with both Blue Hero and the platforms being in motion since I was able to jump from just a tip-toe on platforms, but landing those jumps with the same about of toe-strength seemed nearly impossible.

Yoi!!

The last thing I want to dig into is the construction of the levels and their respective difficulty.  I have read some people who also received free review copies of the game mention the difficulty of the various stages.  Above, Stage 24 proved itself to be fairly difficult and over more than a couple dozen attempts, I learned how/when to time my jumps and what the game would accept as a legitimate landing, then Stage 25 I was able to complete in just two attempts and so the Stages continued until I hit Stage 28 and was once again, saddled with a significant spike in difficulty.  Like any difficult game, it does feel great once you manage to pass a challenging section, but the stages never felt like the troublesome areas were increasing, but randomly spaced out.

Am I A Checkpoint?

There were several aspects of the game that I did very much appreciate that I feel could be overshadowed by all of the criticisms I have.  Because of the type of game Cosmonauta is, I would have been very sad and probably stopped playing after a few minutes had the game had a set number of lives, but thankfully, you do have infinite lives to make it through each stage.  And thankfully there are checkpoints in each stage, and for a brief time, I thought that they were signified by the icon/ground sprite to the right.  In the first dozen or so stages it did seem that I respawned at or near these tiles, or at least often enough for me to question if they were indeed checkpoints.  But as the game progressed into new areas with different tilesets, I stopped seeing these so maybe they are not?  Either way, checkpoints in this game are a necessity so that the player can maintain their sanity.  The music too was not bad, but it was not great either.  There were a couple of songs that would play from beginning to end and then a new song would play.

So would I recommend Cosmonauta?  I don't know.  If you are one to play a platformer that is difficult for the sake of being difficult, then sure.  You could be happy with this game which starts at $0.99 and might likely drop in price during sales.  It may not be everyone's cup of tea and if you are one to fall into fits of rage, then you might just want to pass on this for something a little more calming.



~JWfW/JDub/Cooking Crack/Jaconian
The Lights of Space Flared