Do you kids like your Mega Mans? I know I sure do. I don't generally play a whole lot of Indie games imitating the Blue Bomber's numerous quirks, despite the fact they're almost as popular as all the Metroids and Castlevanias understudies out there. Mostly it's because they tend to be on the tougher side (I swear I'll give RosenkreuzStilette Freudenstachel another go one of these days, and I might even bother to learn how to spell it correctly too). Double Cross from 13AM Games isn't immediately reminiscent of Mega Man X from first blush until you start playing it and then its particular takes on wall-jumping and movement start to feel comfortably familiar. It's also one of many Indie platformers to try their hand at incorporating hookshot-based traversal, using the protagonist's Proton Slinger as a means to propel oneself through the air via a grappling point or snatching enemy projectiles to send them flying back from whence they came.

Said protagonist is enthusiast rookie agent Zahra Sinclair of RIFT: a peacekeeping organization of multiverse cops ensuring the many parallel Earths aren't at risk of any transdimensional banditry or other villainous exploitation. She faces one of the greatest dangers to RIFT yet, a masked supervillain with a grudge looking to dismantle the organization from the inside out by using their secrets and technology against them, and pursues leads across three different Earth variants to track down clues that point to this mastermind's true identity (I should probably state somewhere that this game came out before that Loki show aired, if this all sounds vaguely familiar). The game is set up to allow you to visit these three Earths in whichever order you wish (another Mega Man mainstay) and each world's group of stages are marked by a difficulty rating to give you some idea of the challenge you'll face, while also subtly hinting that it might allow for a more gradual difficulty curve if you alternate worlds rather than complete them one by one. The reason you might want to come back to a harder stage later rather than tough it out in the present is because the game has a set of collectibles that unlocks new passive and active skills for Zahra to use, making the game just that little bit more manageable the more of them you have to rely on. These might include health buffs, added defense, and new combat skills.

In a cute twist, Double Cross gives some amount of real estate to its central mystery with interstitial moments on board RIFT's HQ, during which you can talk to NPCs and use their areas of expertise to ascertain the meaning behind the evidence you've found. By having your fellow compatriots weigh in on some new jar of weird alien goop or an unknown piece of tech, you can learn some vital information and piece together enough to unlock where the boss of a world is hiding while in the long-term also gradually put together the identity of the mastermind. These sequences don't require much detective work—there's like eight people you can talk to, and it's usually pretty obvious where their interests lie—but they're an appealing means to break up the platforming levels a little.

Double Cross occasionally feels like it's about to collapse under its own weight with the amount of mechanics it's incorporated into its moment-to-moment gameplay. In addition to a light attack and heavy attack, different combinations of which produce different results, there's also the jump, a very Hollow Knight-style health recovery move that burns off the player's energy meter and takes a second or two of charging to activate, the aforementioned hookshot ersatz, an AoE burst and a long-range fireball that both run off the same energy meter, and a dodge roll that is useful in combat and sometimes necessary for evading fast-moving hazards. All of these need buttons and since there's not enough to go around, the hookshot requires pressing left on the right analog stick while the dodge roll uses right on the same stick. It's a little inelegant at first, and could probably be optimized better without perhaps the fireball and burst hogging the triggers (the other triggers open the menu, which you'd think the game would use the Start button for), but you eventually get used to it. Once you're propelling yourself around from hookshot point to hookshot point and hitting the dodge at pivotal moments it starts to come together, but only just.

Beyond that though, the game's been a great deal of fun in pure 2D platforming terms and the Saturday morning sci-fi cartoon earnestness and minor adventure game puzzles does lend it the type of personality these dime-a-dozen 2D platformers need to stand out in a very busy market. The upgrade gems give you reason to go back to levels if you miss any, but it does the merciful thing of registering the ones you've found by where they appear in a stage: if there's a gap between the one you just got and the last one you picked up, you'll know whereabouts to start looking for the one you missed. The three worlds distinguish themselves not only by their aesthetic but the types of platforming challenges you can expect to find: the subterranean ickfest Gootopia, for instance, has many puzzles resembling those from Portal 2 where the behavior of the goo covering the walls changes depending on its color (red means it's sticky enough to climb on, blue means you can bounce off it at great heights, etc.). Musically and graphically it's a little plain but certainly not objectionable. The difficulty's a little all over the place, but there's no serious penalties for dying so it's not much of a drag on the harder levels. While it can sometimes feel like it's just about holding itself together, I can't help but appreciate its ingenuity and charm.

Rating: 4 out of 5.