Game Review: Levelhead

Levelhead

Butterscotch Shenanigans

Platformer

Nintendo Switch

I’m not gonna lie, it’s refreshing to play a game that’s just okay. Not great and not overtly awful, but just kinda….there. Perhaps it’s the sheer amount of hours I’ve put into Super Mario Maker 2 (500+, if you must know) that’s jading me at this stage, or perhaps Levelhead is simply flawed, but I just have massive issues with certain parts of this game.

Like most Mario and Sonic games, there’s little in the way of story here (which is why I won’t be rating the story). All you need to know is that the main thrust of the game involves you playing and building your own levels and sharing them so other people can do the same. While it’s nice to see a competitor appear to a market demographic that has almost entirely been dominated by Nintendo since the Wii U era, it’s just a shame that the game doesn’t really have the necessary heft in terms of gameplay to hold it down.

The platforming is decent enough, with levels that are both easy to approach and also challenging when you get deeper. It’s a shame that the campaign doesn’t really do much new, then, it’s a constant repeat of tropes well worn by the genre and repeatedly done better in other games. I’ve not really found any tricks to the game either, it’s the same looping of methods over and over again with little to no variety and no real challenge to speak of. Whereas Super Mario Maker has the benefit of being able to swing from difficulty to difficulty, Levelhead doesn’t really have this.

Beyond everything I’ve already said there’s not really much else to say about the game, sadly. I really wanted to enjoy this game, I love games in which you create your own levels and try and get better each time. A game like Super Mario Maker 2 sounds like my ideal game, but it just hasn’t worked out that way.

Levelhead is a perfectly serviceable game. It’s not one that you’ll play for hours on end, or that you’ll really remember past the initial few hours, but the levels offered combined with the creation tools will occupy your time and give you entertainment until you can find something else to play or do. The main character isn’t memorable (then again, in this genre of game, not a huge amount are) and the gameplay can get extraneous but in brief chunks, you’ll have a decent time. In the meantime, I’ll stick to Super Mario Maker 2.