Spelunker World

Making a free to play game can be slippery slope but this developer found a way to turn a platformer into a reasonable FTP game. Spelunker World is a sequel to the infamously hard NES game. A new spelunker has decided to search through the mines to seek a grand treasure. He still has the same weakness as before with the greatest one being that falling 2 feet equals death. Although you may expect to have a hard time beating these stages this game is a lot fairer to the player early on. Later on they do set up stages in annoying ways but if you are are skilled at dodging everything you’ll never need any power ups.

Other than jumping everywhere the Spelunker has two other skills. The first one is his air blower that scares away ghosts and blows away fog. The 2nd skill is his use of bombs which are great at blowing up rocks and reveling secret areas. Using those items will let you pick up extra Litho-Orbs that let you unlock better equipment to survive all the perils that await you. For example after earning 4 specific orbs you can create a item that could give you extra air time. Yup running out of air is also an issue but you will get a refill at every checkpoint.

Now we come to the free to play part. They give the player two ways to test your luck with the gacha machine. Using either candy or gems, a dog will dig up a treasure item. This can either be in the form of a nice 3-4 star item or some upgrade material if you have bad luck. Since it is so random it really isn’t something you can count on to get some good gear. Thankfully they balanced the game in a way that makes it possible to compete with minimal upgrades. Sure it’ll be tough but it is never unfair in the main campaign.

For someone that only had some affinity with Spelunker thanks to the PS3 remake. I ended up enjoying this a lot more than I expected. The best thing about this game is that the platforming feels a 1000x times better than the original game. Sure it may look like it still has the stilled movement but it is a lot faster and accurate than before. The gacha being completely random is kinda annoying if you feel like a certain piece of gear would let you finish a tough level you might be stuck on. Some of the special stages they put up as apart of a event are a bit to crazy. Almost like they expect the player to either use coins to continue or have the very best gear. Which is really to bad after they did such a good job of not making the rest of the game not require you to spend coins. If you didn't save up coins like I did the only way to continue after running out of coins is to buy some more for some $$$.

Even with hints of all the cash they must have thought about getting from players this is a game you can play through without spending 1$. Without a energy system the only limiter on how much you can compete in the day is how good you are at surviving the many challenges of Spelunker World. If your in the mood for a hard platformer this one is a good choice and it doesn't hurt that you can download this for free.