ScaryGirl Review

You can tell the developer tried, at least. Based on the cult comic of the same name, ScaryGirl is a promotional tie-in that could have featured all of the shallowness you expect from such things. But it doesn’t.

There’s an unusually high standard of artistic merit, the visual design of the game beautifully immersing you in the surreal and slightly dark world of ScaryGirl.

And there’s even a decent stab at something resembling gameplay, the title character’s tentacle-like arm put to good use not just as a Bionic Commando style platforming aide but also as a combat mechanic, allowing you to grab stunned enemies, throw them around or whack them into another. This should all make for a rather good XBLA platform game but, for some reason, the magic just isn’t there.

For the most part, ScaryGirl just feels a little too uninspired and plodding. Like the worst Kirby games, you can bypass enemies simply by hovering over the top of them, and even when you are forced to stand and fight, the thoughtful combat system can be reduced down to a combination of button mashing and repetitive rote attacks.

It’s an experience so joyless that it is actually more fun to sail right over the top of the monsters.

Platforming, meanwhile, is mostly just a case of walking from left to right across a landscape about as under-designed as the 16-bit era’s nadir of licenced cartoon platform games.

When the complexity does increase – often requiring you to combo grapples and hover jumps together – it’s a welcome relief, but one that’s tainted by some misjudged decisions such as obscure camera angles that add unnecessary difficulty or multiple routes that have a habit of doubling back on each other.

Ultimately, ScaryGirl fails because of the context it exists in. 2D platform games have come a long way since the 16-bit days and we’re now spoilt for choice when it comes to interesting, original and, most importantly, well-designed platform games.