A Hole New World

Genre: Action-Platformer

Players: 1

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Review:

A Hole New World is an Action-Platformer with a retro 8-bit-style look and gameplay inspired by classic Platformers like Mega Man and Ghosts ‘N’ Goblins, with players taking the role of a villager fighting an invasion of monsters by chucking potions at them.

As far as the presentation goes, this game absolutely nails the look, sound, and feel of a classic NES game, with solid pixel art visuals and a pretty good soundtrack. While there’s nothing here that truly stands out as memorable in the same way as a game like Shovel Knight, this game nevertheless succeeds brilliantly at hitting the “nostalgia” button.

A Hole New World’s terrible pun of a title comes from the hole(s) the game’s monsters come pouring out of, and actually represents one of the game’s more significant gameplay elements. Players don’t fall into bottomless pits in this game – instead, these holes simply lead to an upside-down mirrored “monster world” with reversed gravity, with players often having to choose which of the two to journey through. This element is worked pretty well into the game too, with some areas requiring players to jump back and forth between the two, and some boss battles even incorporating it into the fight.

Interestingly, enemies can also jump back and forth between the two, and one of the game’s challenges is keeping track of where enemies are in relation to you as you bounce back and forth between the two worlds. Later on, this is compounded by additional potions the player obtains, and players must swap between them as they fight enemies, with some enemies easier to take down with a specific potion.

If I had to point to a major flaw in this game, it’s the uneven difficulty. The game starts out feeling particularly easy, but as soon as you start getting additional types of potions the difficulty level feels like it hits a steep incline. It’s fine for players looking for a challenge, but I think a lot of players will feel blindsided by the sudden jump in difficulty.

Overall, A Hole New World does a fantastic job of imitating the presentation and feel of some of the best games of the 8-bit era, and while the game’s difficulty is a bit uneven, fans of retro-style games should absolutely give this one a try.

tl;dr – A Hole New World is an Action-Platformer designed to have the look and feel of a classic NES-style game like Mega Man or Ghosts ‘N’ Goblins, and it largely succeeds at delivering a quality experience much in that style, albeit with a huge jump in difficulty shortly into the game. Definitely worth a look for fans of retro-style games.

Grade: B+

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