Level Devil Review (PC)

With hindsight, I probably should’ve opted to take an alternate route, and not just throw caution to the wind with the expectation of being an equal and not a piece or meat in the room. Looking back, I wish I had taken the description with a grain of salt. I should’ve known that it was too good to be true, and that, despite one of its three headline reviews being a forged hand-written note from who I figured was the developer’s tongue-in-cheek alter ego, it wasn’t going to be a walk in the park. Its simplistic design was enough to coerce me into believing that it was all fun and games. But, a couple of eye-rolling deaths later, and I soon realized that, rather fittingly, Level Devil wasn’t a joyous 2D platforming game, but an absolute hellhole of tedious but strangely satisfying environmental curveballs.

On the surface, Level Devil looks, sounds, and almost acts like a traditional 2D puzzle-platformer, complete with all of the cardboard cutout shapes, sprites, and universally recognizable elements that you’d usually find in the bottom of the barrel of most, if not all local catalogs. And yet, if you were to dig a little deeper into this particular story, then you would actually come to find another ingredient—an annoying, but stupidly rewarding ingredient that’s as equally bitter as it is palatable. It isn’t quite on the same level as Getting Over It With Bennet Foddy — but it at least makes an attempt to press your buttons just as much. And you know what? That drives me crazy something awful, but I know for a fact that I’ll still be here when the going gets tough to tackle the storm with belt and braces.

Never Judge a Book by its Cover

Level Devil isn’t the easygoing circuit hopper that you think it is; on the contrary, it’s a relentless catastrophe waiting to happen, complete with all of the vein-popping obstacles that will make you scratch your head and, after enough attempts, question your ability to overcome them. It looks harmless, but as it turns out, the more you progress in the campaign, the more the system begins to allow its infrastructure the opportunity to jam the occasional spanner in the mechanism, so to speak. For example, if you happen to find yourself vaulting across platforms, you might find that the ceiling is prone to collapsing, or that, for some reason that’s completely unknown to you, a belt of spikes is capable of sprouting up from the ashes and penetrating your flimsy feet. But herein lies the problem: you never know what will happen next — which is a problem unto itself.

The controls aren’t the problem here; it’s the fact that the game puts you up dung creek without a paddle, and that it doesn’t make an effort to hold your hand and sing Kumbaya, My Lord for the duration of the prelude. As far as the game’s mechanics go, it doesn’t go much further than the formulaic jumping, dipping, or dodging. But that doesn’t make a difference here, for you could have the accuracy of a skilled marksman and the agility of a formidable triathlete, but at the end of the day, neither of these attributes are likely to boost your chances of thwarting the monstrosities that flesh out the obstacle courses in Level Devil. Oh, it’s dumb luck that drives this vessel. It doesn’t matter if you’re the most seasoned player in the room; if the Level Devil is your opponent, then you might as well cash your chips.

Running the Mile

Goodness gracious — there are over 200 levels to beat here, folks. And the best part is, none of them have the brittle bones of an introductory course. It is possible, to be honest, to carve through the game in a relatively short amount of time, though this largely depends on how you approach certain obstacles, and how much slack the game is willing to give you to prevent you from succumbing to a self-inflicted breakdown. It’s inevitable though, I suppose, given the fact that each level produces some sort of threat for you to clamber over, whether it’s a visible one, or one that’s hidden behind a smokescreen of vibrant textures and gentle tomfoolery. But that’s a small part of the fun: learning from your mistakes, and being able to laugh at your own failures to prevent yourself from blowing a gasket or six.

The visuals here aren’t great, so don’t expect to be blown away or engulfed in a striking locale that’s bursting at the seams with dynamic weather patterns or inflatable set pieces. Despite having hundreds of levels under its belt, Level Devil is, more or less, built entirely on two-dimensional shapes and bite-sized sprites. If you absolutely adore rectangular structures, though, then you’ll feel right at home in this four-year-old’s kindergarten sandbox.

Verdict

The questionably sadistic mastermind behind Level Devil set out to accomplish a simple task: to gradually whittle down the last-remaining fragments of its user’s sanity, and to leave them encumbered with veins the sizes of blisters, and the patience of a saint. To that end, Level Devil achieved its goal, and I can personally vouch for that. The game, while oddly satisfying in its own right, is a piece of hot garbage — and I can’t help but love it. To say that I have conflicting feelings about it wouldn’t be all that far from the truth, as I both adore its simplicity and balls-out approach to establishing a scene, but at the same time I’m spiteful about the way it generates headache material like it’s going out of fashion. I guess I just hate whoever created it — but I guess that’s how I’m supposed to feel.

With over two hundred levels of unwarranted carnage and a constant threat from a hostile environment that’s forever aiming to ridicule your efforts keeping you tethered, you could quite easily lose an entire weekend to this unruly creation. That isn’t to say that you’ll enjoy each and every step that you take in it, mind you, as it does make a habit of causing you more stress than it is worth. If, however, you enjoy snide puzzles and disadvantageous terrains, then you’ll probably enjoy the process of having your brain inflated by the audacity of the ridiculous curveballs in this two-dimensional world. It’s a love-hate thing, and yet, you might just find yourself enjoying it a lot more than you would have initially expected. Probably.

On second thought…*server disconnected*