Reviewed by McPortugalem
Having now played three of Machado ‘s games I can see a pattern start to emerge. It is a thing every game creator has, something of a trademark intent or style with their work, whether it’s Kojima and his quasi political-thrillers or whether it’s Itagaki and insane stunts and nonsensical actions the same remains true for all game creators. In that same way that those creators have a style, something players can expect when they come play one of their games, Walter seems to have a kind of ethos to his games. Die quick, fail hard, try again. Much in the same way Super Meat Boy encourages replaying levels after dying because you’re back at the screen where you died in point five seconds the same is true of most 3a’s games.
It’s a comparison I probably have made in other reviews for the games made by Machado but it’s something that still holds true, Machado’s games are loud, colorful and they’re over before you’ve realized it but what is also true is that you get better and go slightly farther in the next attempt, and when you die after five seconds, you may last 6 seconds on your third or fourth or…
It’s a type of game that’s perfectly geared towards the Switch, and its ability to be played anywhere because it requires little to no dedication. That may sound like a bad thing, but it really isn’t, as much as I love games like Dragon Quest Builders or Final Fantasy X I know that as soon as I start playing them I will be engaged for hours before I can pull away feeling as if I’ve made progress. That’s not a concern with Machado’s games because you’re playing mostly for a high score, or you’re challenging yourself and not a story.
In TTV2 you only have one goal, escape and while that goal seems simple the fact that you’re challenged at every turn makes it so that it is anything but. In TTV2 you are constantly switching screens, every single time you reach the edge of a screen you pull to another screen and you must choose a direction to keep heading. Hearing it described as a maze game you might have thought you’d have time to retrace your steps, to wander around confused but in truth, much like in any other of Walter’s games your body needs to react before you’re even aware of what’s going on.
It’s a game of reflexes, a game where you must dodge weave and skillfully push away from the threats that threaten you. Be it blades cornering you, vines that reach towards you or walls that close in it is as much a game about being quick on your fingers as it is about memorizing the paths you’ve taken. One hit is enough for you to be reset, for you to get sent back to the starting point and while that is frustrating, all your progress being nullified like that it also makes it so that you feel a thrill every single time you reach a screen further.
It’s a nonsensical, confusing mess of a place, the one which you are trying to escape and yet that makes sense in a way that all mazes make sense, it’s a game of trial and error, a game where you can spend half an hour trying to head straight up only to realize that it’s a dead trap and you should have gone right at some point, but it’s also something that pushes you forward. More than wanting to beat the game at a certain point you start to feel like you want to beat the maze, like every death taunts you, and you’ve got to prove you can do it.
I love mazes games, I love the feeling and satisfaction of slowly discovering where I am and where I need to go. Though maze stages are not everyone’s cup of tea (I still remember my cousin losing himself in the Forest of Illusion from Super Mario World) they are something I always loved and yet a common thing that makes Maze games boring is that after you solve the puzzle once you’re never going to replay it.
That’s not an issue here, because Machado went and turned what was, in essence a simple maze and made it so that even if you know the way out you have to struggle to get there. It reminds me of a jungle explorer, getting lost in some long lost ruins and having to dodge spikes that shoot from the ground and fake floors and it’s engaging to a point few other maze games are. It’s rewarding, rewarding in a way all the best games are when you can get from point a to point b dying and while I probably died a hundred, heck two hundred times just trying to figure out where I was going, and then I died a couple hundred more once I finally had an idea of the right way to go the same thing I praise in every one of Machado’s games kept me going. Dying might have sucked, it might have reset all my progress but It didn’t make me give up, if anything the fact resetting was instantaneous only made me more determined. Maybe not in the current attempt, or even the next one, but I would get a way to beat the maze. I would win…
Disclaimer: A review key was provided