SAGE 2023 - Complete Super Freaks 1 Ultimate Edition

As my full disclosure, I was part of the playtesting process for this game for a few months and helped brainstorm ideas for a few levels. But even removed from that, I feel like I would say the same things I will here; This game is incredibly fun in gameplay and presentation.

Everything is meant to have a specific "idealized retraux" feeling, but not in the sense of an NES or PS1 game. Instead, it's aiming to capture the vibe of those old game maker projects you'd play and make as a kid, in part because it's a ground-up remake of one such project to add many, many new features, quality of life changes, and visual updates. In that sense, everything is simply designed but refined to add astounding amounts of character to even the most basic of enemies.

The writing is similarly not at all concerned with trying to be serious, with most cutscenes being more like intermissions between each world to maintain a comedic atmosphere and sometimes, maybe even explain what you're doing there.

The music, while initially MIDI renditions of carefully-selected music tracks, has been completely revamped to songs composed with a specific set of MIDI instruments in mind, as credited in the description. Each one does an excellent job of hitting a sweet spot between "Donkey Kong Country ambience" and "90s infomercial score" that blends well with each level and boss encounter.

And finally, the gameplay itself. While it's a very barebones game in controls, that's to the benefit of how the player interacts with the environment. Everything is finely-tuned to feel snappy and responsive, enemies & obstacles are placed in different and inventive ways that took me by surprise when I played it fresh, and there are many forms of unlockables to try for between finishing levels and getting all the collectible trophies in them. However, the biggest thing I need to stress about the gameplay's fun-factor is the co-operative gameplay. Up to four players can play at once, and not once has the game ever slowed down or felt overwhelming. And on top of that, there's the co-op exclusive "Elastiband", a mechanic inspired by Knuckles Chaotix, in order to add an element of physics interactions and general chaos between having two interchangeable band frequencies available across four players, and the option to simply not use it.

You know the drill.

It's Super Freaks. It swept. He won our hearts last year with his memes, and won the event this year with a complete product that's absolutely packed with content, playstyle options, and solid precision platforming. There aren't many games out there as simply but tightly designed as Super Freaks, and due to all the feedback he procured last year, it's more polished than ever.

I said it before and I'll say it again; it's ultra basic gameplay, fine tuned to an atom-wide point.

So full disclaimer, I've been friends with this developer for years, I've watched the game's development from start to finish, and I've been a regular playtester for it the whole way.

SF1UE might not look like it from the retro Game Maker inspired art style, but it's honestly one of the most tight platformers I've played in a while. It won't impress you if you're expecting crazy movement tech, but it more than makes up for that with how polished the level design is. It honestly feels like a Nintendo game sometimes in each level introduces new ideas and then incrementally builds atop them. This game does a LOT with such a simple moveset.

Difficulty-wise the game has a somewhat easy start, but it can get downright fiendish once you reach the second half of the game. Thankfully It never feels too brutal, and there's a variety of options from level layout difficulty to HP settings, to self-imposed challenges like game overs, fast forward, and the ability to lower how many hearts you can hold max. There's also a nice amount of speedrun challenge modes too, more games like this need randomizers, tbh.

Worth mentioning too is the co-op experience. I know most people won't get to try it, but if your network or computer can handle Parsec, you absolutely owe it to yourself to try it with a friend or two. The rubberband mechanics are chaotic in a way that really lends itself well to playing with a friend, but can thankfully be turned off if you just want to focus on pure platforming.

The general vibe of the game is also wonderful. It has a goofy tongue-in-cheek cartoon attitude that doesn't take itself too seriously, but also doesn't overstay its welcome. The characters and enemies are fun, the cutscenes are silly, and the music is a vibe. For real, philRaco's soundtrack may honestly be one of the most vibing OSTs I've heard in a game. Many of the mid-late game tracks have a similar energy to the Donkey Kong Country games where you don't expect them to go nearly as hard as they do. By the time you finish the game 100%, you feel like you've been on a journey.

This game is also a technical feat, too?? It supports multiple aspect ratios, 120hz monitors, TONS of controller types, is ridiculously well optimized under the hood, and has all sorts of platforming gimmicks like rotating platforms, time stopping, level hazards synced with the music, etc. that you don't see too often in a lot of indie games of this scope.

Anyway, the #SUPERFREAKSSWEEP is real