After a respawn timer counts down, the deceased player comes back to life. Downed players turn into ghosts, a state in which they can fly around but not interact with anything. It’s not just the second sword during boss fights and lengthy battles, it’s also the ability for a downed player to respawn without getting sent back to a checkpoint. A duplicate Skellboy with a different mix of body parts will join the fray.Ĭo-op certainly makes the game easier at times, even if items and health cubes are not shared among players. To add a second player, simply press the menu button at any time and then select Multiplayer. The “Refractured” version of Skellboy adds a new Refractured Campaign (the equivalent of the Master Quest in Zelda), a randomized Submarine dungeon, lots of new boss fights and items, and drop-in, drop-out 2-player local co-op. Sticking to a more fixed A Link to the Past-like viewpoint while outside of cutscenes would be far more intuitive. While it certainly produces cool cinematic effects here and there, it also tends to obscure objectives and make paths harder to see. The vast majority of the time, you’re stuck without navigational guidance, making it easy to get lost in dungeons and the like. Instead, players only get to glance at an overworld map at certain sporadic locations. Worse, you can’t just access a map at any time like in most games of this type. First off, Skippy walks too slowly, making backtracking a real pain. Navigation is also a sticking point in Skellboy Refractured. Players can kick the difficulty down via “Relax Mode,” but that doesn’t make the combat any more fluid. Sometimes the game has the audacity to force the player to fight a big batch of enemies in a row within a confined area, and it’s just too hard to avoid damage because of the clunky combat. The hero’s weapons have different arcs and properties, but they all swing too slowly and leave players open to damage too often. Combat is, unfortunately, the most frustrating aspect of Skellboy. Skippy mostly fights with swords and axes, though he can fire ballistas found in the environment or wield certain projectile weapons as well. ![]() ![]() ![]() Medusas will get on your nerves, but they’re a clever foe indeed. One monster, the medusa head, even takes over as Skellboy’s head, reversing the player’s controls, until poor Skellboy can find a new one. The hero can equip a bomb for his head to blow up walls, leaving him headless afterward. The game really does interesting things with swappable parts at times. It’s probably wisest to prioritize parts that increase Skippy’s health, which will surely have the side effect of creating silly mismatched looks. Each piece has an amusing little description and can affect the hero’s stats in varying ways. Skippy’s head, torso, and legs can be swapped out with parts dropped by enemies or found throughout the environment. The catchy chiptune soundtrack from Bjoern suits the visuals quite well, even if certain songs become repetitive after a while.Īlthough Skellboy Refractured is mostly a traditional Zelda-style game, the hero’s skeletal nature here certainly gives the gameplay a unique flavor. It sort of recalls the style of Treasure’s beat ‘em up-RPG Guardian Heroes, though with deliberately boxy characters and a much more active 3D camera. Skellboy’s graphics utilize a unique blend of 2D sprites and 3D environments to extremely pleasing effect. The intro, in which the bits hit the fan, is part of this action-adventure game’s strongest element: presentation. Squarumon has inadvertently resurrected an ancient hero, though – Skippy, AKA Skellboy! Now our hero (and a duplicate in 2-player co-op) must rescue the king, find the missing princess, and stop the evil wizard once and for all. One day, the kindly but naïve king’s court magician, Squarumon, disrupts life for everyone when he casts a spell to raise the dead and other monstrosities. Skellboy Refractured takes place in the kingdom of Cubold, where everyone is made of boxes and cubes. Are those improvements enough to mend all of Skellboy’s broken bones, though? The new version adds an extra dungeon, more boss fights, performance improvements, and most importantly, 2-player local co-op. ![]() Now the game has been re-released after extensive reworking as Skellboy Refractured. Over a year ago, Umaiki Games and Fabraz released a charming but fairly unpolished Zelda-style action-adventure called Skellboy on Switch and Steam.
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