Never have I started a game so excited yet so fuelled by rage. Golden Force is an absolute bastard of a game to get caught up in, as you begin the game in a boss battle that is, quite frankly, testing.
Hoping to rope my kids in to play co-op with me, my youngest sat redundant with a controller in hand as you only play the opener on your own. Stuck on a ship, the captain barks out commands – ah, it’s a tutorial. Yes, the opening did set the wrong impression and think that Storybird Games misjudged it this early on. If you don’t get past this section, you can’t play the rest of the game – simple. Confession, I even threw the controller. Yep.
And that’s disappointing, as once you get past this introduction, Golden Force begins, and it’s exactly how I hoped. It’s definitely challenging, there’s no doubt about it, but the visuals and brilliant, the colours feel like the artists were given 100% creative control – it was platform bliss.
Make a note that in the Golden Force two-player mode, if the second person wanders off or lags, a vignette will appear on the screen showing their location. You’ll have to do a lot of to-me, to-you, to share the screen space again. Aside from it being annoying when the other player does their own thing, the vignette that appears occasionally appears over the action, and you can’t see what you’re doing.
Aside from my whinging about the opening, the worst part about Golden Force isn’t the difficulty; in some sadistic way, that’s a feature. What I didn’t like was the respawning of enemies almost immediately after killing them, plus there are very few health pickups, and many of the deaths you experience are cheap tricks or harsh level design.
Still, if you persevere, the levels in Golden Force aren’t actually that long and here’s the easy thing to say: once you’ve done it, repeat visits aren’t as hard. That said, revisiting bosses (including the Kraken from the beginning) will test you. And, while there’s a fair selection of power-ups, they’re mostly temporary.
Golden Force is a bit of a mixed bag: on the surface, this is perfect, within the context of aesthetics and feel-good factor (ignoring the harsh realities). The characters and animations are great, and there’s a good range of enemies and even better bosses.
I wouldn’t say the controls are tight, per se. When dashing, it always feels underserved, like you should cover more distance or perhaps regenerate faster. Equally, the aiming system for launching skulls is a pig, unless the switch is in front of or above you.
If it weren’t for the unfairness at times or the wasted opportunities with power-ups, Golden Force would be a classic. It hits the mark for presentation and feels, but the introduction, while setting the tone for the rest of the game, was a bit much. Definitely worth a look, but be prepared for some resistance.
