Aggelos

Today I want to show a moment of gratitude to the 2D side-scrolling adventure games I grew up with. While most of the time the genre was seen from an overhead perspective, classic games like The Adventure of Link, Cadash, Wanderers from Ys and Wonder Boy in Monster World tried something a little different. If you're a fan of this style of adventuring, then you're going to dig Aggelos. This is not only an expertly constructed love letter to a very specific era of role-playing game, but also a great new quest filled with colorful 16-bit graphics, cool boss fights and a whole bunch of varied stages to explore. Long live the side-scrolling adventure game.

True to the spirit of the games that inspired it, Aggelos is light on setup. You play a young adventurer who wakes up with an overwhelming urge to travel west. He's not sure why, but there's something pulling him in that direction and he can't say no. It's lucky that he listened to his intuition, because our hero rescues the Princess and learns that there are otherworldly creators invading the kingdom. It's now your job to search far and wide for the four elements and then mix them together in order to defeat the evil menace.

You do this by exploring a large connected world filled with little towns and mazy dungeons. Like a lot of games in this genre, this is the kind of quest where you'll scrounge around for items and powers that will open up new areas that were previously off limits. Most of these powers tie directly into the elemental theme, such as throwing a fireball or creating a bubble of protection. We'll also find abilities that will give us a useful upper thrust that can be used like a double jump, as well as forward thrust that sees our hero fly straight through the bad guys. And best of all, most of these elements will have multiple uses. For example, instead of just throwing fireballs, you can create portals with that power that will let you bypass gates and other traps.

Beyond the elemental abilities, the combat is a pretty straight-forward affair. It's the usual hack and slash, with an emphasis on collecting coins and buying new models. There's actually an impressive amount of swords and armor to buy, including some with special abilities. I like how the bubble sword is just a regular bladed weapon on dry land, but shoots out little bubbles underwater. You'll see similar advantages with the Lightning Sword and Dragon Sword, especially when they are taken outside of their normal environment.

Speaking of which, Aggelos throws a lot of familiar settings at you. We've already talked about throwing bubbles underwater, but you'll also fight through the forest, in a volcano, up to the clouds and even into an alternate dimension. Each of these levels concludes with a lengthy fight against a large and detailed boss. It's a formula we've seen plenty of times before, but that doesn't stop it from being satisfying.

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Unfortunately, the game is old school in some annoying ways. This is one of those side-scrolling adventures where the combat is not just limited, but usually done at a close range. This meant that I was open to taking a lot of hits from the enemies, especially in the early sections when our hero is horribly underpowered. But I quickly realized that it didn't matter, since the nearby checkpoints always refill your health and there are items you can buy in case things get really hairy. Even after spending ten hours questing through this fantasy world, I accepted that the combat is going to be messy.

Part of the reason for this is because the gameplay isn't always great. It's not that the controls are bad, but they are a bit on the loose side. This very much feels like the 8- and 16-bit games its mimicking, sometimes to a fault. It's especially bad when the game throws a bunch of platforming challenges at you. Abilities like the downward thrust and double jump should be easy to pull off, but they don't always work as advertised.

And then there's one move that works too well. I'm not sure if it's a bug with the PlayStation 4 version or more widespread, but if you press diagonal up/left on the D-pad and jump, you'll perform the upward slash. This doesn't work if you press up/right; it's only when you're pointing left. The problem with this is that I'll often want to use the thrust as a double jump, but the game will perform the wrong move as a bug and screw the whole thing up. This may not sound like a big deal, but it was the cause of more deaths than I care to admit.

Thankfully, the gameplay issues didn't ruin my enthusiasm for Aggelos. I was still won over by the colorful world and authentic early-1990s graphics. It's one of those games that spends most of its time paying homage to the classics, but still manages to find ways of being unique and offering something a little different. If you were a fan of those side-scrolling adventure games back in the day, then you'll find a lot to like in Aggelos.