Blah blah blah, retro modern blaggity bloo. Yep, you could pretty much take the opening paragraphs of my Mutant Mudds review and stick them here too, because just like that game, VVVVVV is a game that positively revels in its retro/modern paradoxes, albeit with one crucial difference: VVVVVV is just simply an outstanding game.
Released on Steam back in 2010 and slowly rolling out to every platform imaginable (the 3DS version I played, handled with great aplomb by the folks from Nicalis – who did the amazing Cave Story conversion for WiiWare – is the most recent), VVVVVV is a gravity-flipping platformer starring Captain Viridian, a cute little guy whose spaceship gets wrecked while in interstellar flight, scattering his five other V-named compatriots to the four corners of this new dimension. It's your job to save all of them while avoiding the many, many, many pitfalls that await you.
Comparisons between VVVVVV and Super Meat Boy are inevitable, if only because they share an incredibly similar affection for killing you over and over again with sharp things. It's a good thing that VVVVVV isn't truly retro, because if it were, you'd be saddled with five lives and you'd never see the ending screen (for reference, I died a staggering 854 times in my playthrough). This does, however, drastically change the gameplay of a platformer like this – whereas a game with a set life count (which I'm not saying would be a good thing in this case) would feel like a kind of journey with real consequences for failure, by allowing you endless repeats of a section until you can get it right – and a "save anywhere" feature to boot! – VVVVVV feels less like an adventure and more like a testing ground.
This is a similar situation that Super Meat Boy found itself in (basically, feeling more like a Flash game than a real platforming adventure), but VVVVVV survives this design decision by merit of its undeniable charm and wit. The game is designed to look and sound like a vintage Commodore 64 game, and as a proud former owner of that veritable gold mine of video gaming, I can say that Terry Cavanaugh absolutely fucking nailed the aesthetic, right down to the fonts used and everything. Normally, that kind of verisimilitude is played for retro cred, rather than for some contextual purpose, but here, Cavanaugh is really playing with the Commodore form, telling a legitimate story in a humourous way that uses the generic trappings of a C64 game for some well-deserved laughs.
Perhaps the best example of this is in the game's often hilariously named rooms. Unlike a lot of games of this ilk, the screens don't scroll, meaning that each screen is often a self-contained challenge. When you enter a new room, the room is given some sort of referential name that is good for a few laughs. That is, until the rooms murder you over and over again, and your endless deaths become a kind of humour in and of themselves.
The side effect of the cute and lovable story and dialogue is that the sting of the punishing challenges is completely washed away. It seems weird to want something so punishing to also be so enjoyable, but it's that push-pull dynamic between the murderous gameplay and the cutesy C64 story that make it so engaging. And once your muscle memory starts learning the intricacies of the gravity-flipping mechanic, the design of the game really starts to engage as well. The challenges are extraordinarily difficult, but this is not even close to being one of the most arduous of platformers, even when you're flying upside down through a spike-lined corridor. And the 3DS version goes one step further in including a map on the bottom screen, which, during the game's more Metroid-y moments, is a godsend.
Basically, VVVVVV creates an incredibly pleasant gaming experience for the retro-minded. The soundtrack is a phenomenally well-done appropriation of Ben Daglish chiptune goodness, and the exploration and level design is also just as well done. In fact, despite some of my reservations about this type of platforming experience, it's the quality of the game that shines through, as Cavanaugh and crew basically don't put one foot wrong. This isn't a game to change the world then, it's one to pay homage – and while that's something that's done basically on a daily basis in indie gaming, there are few games that simultaneously bow at the altar of retro worship and are still as enjoyable and fun to play as this game is. Quite simply, VVVVVV is the best C64 game never released for that platform – even better than 4th and Inches, son!