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Typically, when you jump into an action-platformer your playing a valiant hero looking to fend off waves of the evil undead from taking over the world. Now what if we played some role reversal and make the undead charming and loveable while making the humans vile beings. Considering that I’ve never had a skeleton steal my coffee, humans truly are evil and should be shown as such. This brings us to Skelattack, a charming action-platformer that follows Skully (a loveable skeleton) and Imber (his adorable ally) as the fight off hordes of humans who look to take over the Underworld.

From the start, Skully can perform your typical move set including double jumps and wall climbs. As you progress through the story, you’ll gain new weapons and abilities, like spells, to help traverse the maps; however, the former play the most integral role throughout the game. While the controls themselves are difficult to learn, it takes a bit to perfect the execution. Considering that the game throws you into the action quickly you can expect to die a bit in the early game. Wall jumping consists of using the analog stick (keypad) and repeatedly jumping from the wall and back to it. It’s a weird way to execute, and often looks like Skully became an undead Spiderman flying up walls.

My biggest gripe with Skelattack is the combat, or lack of it. Skully is armed with an awesome sword, and magical abilities to fight off “hordes of humans” that have invaded the underworld. With that being said, most of the areas lack any enemies to use your arsenal on. More often you’ll be avoiding spikes and traps sets by the humans, but not them flesh bags themselves; I guess they’re still off stealing coffee. When you do come across enemies the combat consists of just slashing at the enemy until one of you dies. I’m not asking for an in-depth combat system, but the ability to block would have been useful.

Skelattack thrives off of it’s whimsical art style, charming characters, and humorous dialogue which kept me looking for more from the game. Characters that you come across on your adventure tend to be so interesting that you want to see more of them; and I don’t think there was one character that I didn’t like.

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Skelattack isn’t a long game, usually finished in about 4 hours considering your skill level. I’m not going to knock the game for that because sometimes shorter games you can finish quickly allow you to break away from the monthly expeditions of modern titles. While I would’ve liked to have seen the gameplay flushed out more, the game fills in an enjoyable story that will keep you invested the whole way through.

Skelattack is a great first step in Konami’s push to publish Western games. What the game lacks in terms of depth in the overall gameplay, it makes up for in an captivating story filled with loveable character that keep you wanting more.

THE BREAKDOWN

PROS:

• Whimsical world filled with lovable characters that will keep you invested through the game. 
• Controlling Skully is an easy task.

CONS:

• Gameplay mechanics lack depth that never fully gets displayed.
• Constant checkpoints take away from the threat of death.
• Wall jump mechanic feels weird, and janky. 

*Complementary copy of the game was provided by the developer for review purposes.