Developer: Marcelo Barbosa
Publisher: Marcelo Barbosa
Platform: PC
Tested on: PC
Tcheco in the Castle of Lucio – Review
Tcheco is one of the most popular cartoons in Brazil, even having its own YouTube dedicated to him. Tcheco in the Castle of Lucio is a homage to these cartoons and to old-school arcade style platformers. After first having a browser game called “Tcheco no Castelo do Sarney”, Marcelo Barbosa thought it was time to upgrade it to a real game with extra levels and improved mechanics.
Story
It’s a me, Tcheco! Sounds familiar? That’s one of the first lines you’ll hear in the trailer for Tcheco in the Castle of Lucio, and it’s pretty much spot on, you’re Tcheco alright. Somehow, you’ve gotten yourself into a mess and landed into a mysterious castle filled with deadly creatures, spikes and a lot of traps. Your job is to try and escape the castle in one piece, and no, there is no princess you have to rescue.
The game itself doesn’t really give you any sort of story at all, but it doesn’t really matter because that’s not what the developers were going for. It tries to mimic the good old NES days, where platformers were platformers and didn’t have complicated stories to them. You simply go into a castle and try to pass room by room until you get out, nothing more, nothing less.
Graphics
Tcheco in the Castle of Lucio does its best to try and mimic old school NES games, and it succeeded pretty well at it. The graphics are inspired by 8 bit games but the game isn’t 8 bit itself. Everything looks really colorful and simple, and that’s what makes this game so interesting. It’s not the usual great graphics, but it really feels like you’re playing an old game, and that’s exactly what the developers were going for.
It does however play in a horrible resolution window (640×480). This isn’t necessarily such a bad thing, but it wreaks havoc upon multi-screen users, pushing the content on the right screen away because the main screen is running a low resolution game. The only thing the developers could do about this is make the resolution dynamic, because having your content on your second monitor pushed away is a common bug in Windows.
Sound
Of course, the music and sound effects are also inspired by old school sound tracks. The soundtrack is very lively (but loud) and it’s pretty much what you expect from a game like this. It serves the game right and helps it further in its journey to the old days of gaming. The sound effects are also pretty nice and simple, again, just what you’d expect.
The sound is really what makes or breaks a game, and Tcheco was pretty much spot on. The soundtrack can get a bit annoying at times because you’ll be listening to it a lot, but it’s really good for the game and a lot of people probably like it more than me.
Gameplay
In its core, Tcheco in the Castle of Lucio is a very easy game to play, but don’t be deceived as the levels get progressively harder. It’s just a very basic platformer, where you have your left and right button and your jump, that’s pretty much it. In the first few levels, you won’t encounter much threat, but as you get further and further, you’ll find it’s almost impossible without practicing a lot.
Of course, Tcheco goes back to the old school hardcore platformers where there were no checkpoints at all. You have 8 lives to complete 65 rooms, if you run out of lives, you’ll start again back at the start. This is what makes Tcheco a pretty big time spender, it’s really hard to defeat all rooms with only 8 lives and health packs are really rare to find. It might not be a but load of content like a lot of games have, but for a dollar game it brings quite a bit of game time.
The levels themselves are small at first sight, they’re single-screen rooms where you have to grab keys in order to unlock the exit. Sometimes you’ll have to grab multiple keys in order to unlock it. All the levels are also filled with things that can damage you of course. Enemies can usually be evaded by jumping over them but sometimes you’ll have to be more creative when turrets start shooting at you. Other things that can damage you are spikes and other projectiles. Of course, you can also die by falling off the map, which might happen a lot in some of the harder levels that require precise jumping.
Besides simply grabbing keys and going to the next room, Tcheco features some bosses, surprisingly enough, seeing as it’s a very basic game. You’ll have to avoid their attacks and shoot rockets at them with buttons located on either side of the room. Time it right and you’ll damage the boss, each time you damage him, his attacks and him will start to move faster.
It’s not always running and jumping though. At times, you’ll be defying gravity, swimming or even skateboarding vertically up walls. There’s a lot of variety and each level is different from the other ones, so you’re definitely not going out the easy way.
Conclusion
Tcheco in the Castle of Lucio is a true blast from the past. It features hardcore platforming with no checkpoints and 65 rooms that get more difficult as you progress through them. It’s filled with nonsense and retro goodness, making it an ideal game for people who miss their old games. Even if you do buy it and don’t like it, it’s under 1 dollar, euro, pound or whatever, so you won’t be “wasting” a lot of money.
Tcheco in the Castle of Lucio - Review,
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