N+

Good night?

2D platformers often require a degree of precision that no other games do. To miss a jump is to die. To breathe on a threat is to die. In N+, to not even get through the stage in time is to die, so you better get a grip on the physics of being a minimalist gold-hunting ninja pretty sharpish.

Fun Times

First, there was N, a Flash game I might have come across but definitely to no great extent. Then there was N+, porting the platformer to the Xbox Live Arcade, as well as the Nintendo DS and PlayStation Portable, which is the nice widescreen version I'm emulating here.

All the games, no matter how many +'s are attached to the title, are identical at their core. You are a ninja, with one primary goal: reach the end of the level, usually locked away, before you succumb to time-induced death.

You can push off that death by collecting gold, and as the tutorials show, this gold just happens to be scattered around the level in such a way as to show off the skills you have at your disposal.

Most of the time you'll be jumping, but N+ doesn't just have you jump, but positivity fly, sail, soar and zip around the stages, and that's before you learn about wall jumping from one wall to another, or even up a single wall, and the incredible grip strength you have when sliding down walls too.

You are, in short, a nimble little fella.

Frustrations

But you're only really nimble if you nail the physics and the sense of gravity that N+ presents to players, and I, in short, didn't. I basically hate the feel of this game. It's early days, I know, but a simple tutorial teaching you how the robot security works resulted in a great number of blood spurts from a dead ninja.

Jump too far, too short, too low, at the wrong time, and the stage hazards may zip towards you for a kill faster than you think. It's not that these opponents are too difficult, either. They're just pouncing on your poor performance, and I was often giving a poor performance.

Getting back into the action is mercifully quick and painless, which is about as swift as at death at the hands of mines or robots. One mistake will end your run through a level, whether it's an obvious mistake, like walking onto a mine, or a not-so-obvious one, like ignoring the clock and dillydallying.

That on its own isn't bad. It pushes players into better, smoother runs, trying to get them to gracefully navigate the level in a way that avoids harm and hoovers up gold. N+ is a game for replaying until you get it right, and your reward is looking good while doing it.

My problem with N+ is that I don't want to replay a level at all. I see nothing going on here to entice me to get better, no reason to keep going. I don't bother collecting all the gold on a level because I don't care about high scores. My aim is to unlock the door and walk through it. Anything that happens en route is a bonus, nothing more.

Each level may have introduced a new challenge, but I generally hated my new playground on account of not liking the demand for precision. Everyone starts N+ looking like a floundering idiot, jumping the wrong way, not jumping far enough, taking multiple attempts to get past an obstacle. It's to be expected, yes, but it feels awful.

So the answer is to push through and get good, right? If I practice the movement mechanics, if I really try to get a good understanding of the physics, I should have a good time.

I got to this level, early on, and just utterly failed to understand what I was supposed to be doing to get to the level exit. Jumping, obviously, but there was something I was missing. I had to ask myself how long I wanted to spend on this level. How long do I want to spend playing N+?

Final Word

No longer, was the answer. Nothing about N+ is appealing to me. I don't do hunts for high scores like this. I don't do repetitive precision platforming unless it is gripping. I've been trying to work in a reference to Super Meat Boy, which is also a game I am rubbish at, with zero hope of ever finishing, but it's a game I want to try again and again at because it is compelling.

Throwing a slab of meat at a wall and watching it splatter in that game is a joy, whether that was a result of a run-ending mistake or not. Watching a featureless stick-man-like ninja hit an obstacle and pop isn't a joy.

I don't have a sense of "Aww, nuts, so close... one more go" with N+, largely because of the way it looks. Why is this ninja collecting gold in weird levels? What's his story? What's his purpose? He feels like a placeholder for something that will never come.

I knew, going into this, that I wouldn't be playing much of it, simply because I don't gravitate towards these games. They don't do anything for me. They're just there to show off a mechanic or a physics engine. I'm not interested.

Wrap those mechanics up in something I care about, however, and have a character that you can't help but like or care for, and now you're turning heads from people who wouldn't otherwise have given you a look.

N+ doesn't turn heads - unless you count mine now turning away.

Fun Facts

DLC packs would add hundreds of levels each, ensuring fans of the game really did have plenty of content to sink their teeth into.

N+, developed by Slick Entertainment, SilverBirch Studios, Metanet Software, first released in 2008.

Version played: PlayStation Portable, 2008, via emulation.