Old School Adventure is a platformer, but rather than having separate levels, there’s just one big interconnected world to explore similar to games like Metroid & Castlevania. There are several different power-ups that you can gain like spike armor & flying boots and a number of colored keys scattered here and there and it’s up to you to figure out how to get through the big maze that is the game’s world.
Old School Adventure does something I’ve rarely seen before – it makes backtracking interesting. You’ll go through a set of obstacles and then later, you’ll have to go back through this set again, but with a different power-up active which ends up transforming the experience drastically. This kind of intelligent level design is common throughout the entire game.
The game is fairly difficult, but you have unlimited lives and checkpoints are frequent so it doesn’t become oppressive. The game will probably take about an hour or two to finish the first time which is a little on the short side, but I’d rather have a tightly designed shorter game than a longer game with a lot of pointless filler.
Ignore the mediocre user ratings (which are probably mostly due to the game’s MS Paint-esque visuals), Old School Adventure has it where it counts – great gameplay. At only 80 MS points, it’s an easy recommendation.
