Ginnung

Genre: Platformer

Players: 1

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Review:

Ginnung is a challenging Platformer released on PC in 2022 and ported to Nintendo Switch in 2023. In this game, players jump and air-dash their way through each level to try and reach the level’s exit as quickly as possible.

The presentation here is okay, using simple but decent-looking pixel art visuals. Unfortunately, these are backed by a pretty subdued soundtrack that does not really match the gameplay well.

As for that gameplay, Ginnung is absurdly hard, spiking in difficulty quickly. Players need to have precise control to get through this game’s devilishly-designed levels. Unfortunately, this game’s controls aren’t very precise, making the tricky platforming even more so. The way the game makes you aim your air dash while moving just does not fit well with precision, and add on some very loose movement and you’re in for a lot of frustration.

I suppose I should mention that on the other hand, this game does have one odd mitigating factor – if you take lethal damage, you can still try to get to the exit, you just have a limited amount of time standing on solid ground before you’re whisked away to restart the level, so jumping around and hanging off of walls as much as you can en route to the exit can extend your time.

On the other hand, there’s occasional gunplay here that not only seems entirely superfluous, but the control assignment just doesn’t feel conducive to the rest of the gameplay, sticking the fire button on ZR while the jump button is on B.

Overall, Ginnung isn’t bad, and it even has some decent core mechanics. Unfortunately, the controls are so unwieldy that wresting control of those mechanics proves far too difficult, making this a game that’s difficult to appreciate, especially when you have other similar Platformers on Nintendo Switch without these control issues. Play one of those instead.

tl;dr – Ginnung is a challenging Platformer where players need to jump and air-dash to the exit as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, the controls in this are far too unwieldy for a game that absolutely demands precision control, with the difficulty level spiking early. This game isn’t without its charms, but you have far too many better alternatives to bother with it.

Grade: C

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