PixelJunk games has always had a distinct flair to the series, weither it is the art style or the fast paced gameplay, they know how to keep gamers coming back for more. PixelJunk Sidescroller has a real retro feel to it, so how can the minds behind titles such as PixelJunk Monsters, Racers and Shooter take on the sidescrolling? Is it an exploding great time or does this arcade-like scroller not worth the quarter.

PixelJunk has a way of making the most simplistic genre’s, like tower defense or racing, and now side-scrolling, and turning them into something intricate that is easy to pick up and play, but hard to master. Sidescroller is presented in a retro arcade feel, one that allows for the overlapping screen like you were playing from an arcade cabinet. Upon starting up one of the games three stages, (which consist of a few levels and a boss area) players are put at a crossroad. Do you choose the somewhat safe road and pick casual or do you go with normal? Hard exists but is only there to tease as an unlockable, and there is an invisible difficulty that is unlocked after that called Brutal. Honestly, you won’t make it past hard so calm down. Previous PixelJunk titles had a certain array of difficulty to them but Sidescroller really ups the ante.

Your ship, in true early arcade format, is strictly forward facing like in the titles that President, and Executive Producer at Q-Games, Dylan Cuthbert cite as his inspiration and want to do Sidescroller, R-Type and Darius. You’ll be able to switch between three types of upgradeable weapons: laser, which eats through multiple enemies upon contact; bombs, which will bounce around and can do heavy damage to stationary enemies such as turrets; and finally, the most useful due to the high rate of fire is the machine gun. You can collect little emblems that can upgrade weapons by destroying enemies that are colored slightly different than the others. The use of color to distinguish is nothing new to gaming, but here it’s done in conjunction with the art style to create a quite interesting visual effect. Weapons can be upgraded five times, however if you die before a checkpoint and manage to get your weapon to level 4 or 5 it will revert to level 1. Also if you use all your lives all your weapons reset, even though you will continue from the same checkpoint. This really makes the game even more difficult if you have all level 1 weapons deep in enemy territory.

The levels and art style is very similar to PixelJunk Shooter 1 & 2, which is of course understandable since it utilizes the same engine. Slight tweaks to the color scheme are interesting, and mixing warm with cool colors throughout the tapestry of the game is very soothing to look at, until you realize as you were just admiring the scenery you just got shot. Enemies have their own unique colors too, and certain enemies hold power ups such as shields, 1UP’s and upgrades for your weapons. You’ll usually be able to distinguish which ones have a secret by looking at their heads or top section. Throughout the game you can collect coins with the PixelJunk logo on them, there are three in every level, excluding boss levels. Collect them for bonus points as well as a general collectible. They are hard to spot unless you are right on top of them, shooting wildly is encouraged as if bullets fly past the PixelJunk coins they appear for a moment giving players a hint where they are located. Some players may be disappointed with a lack of story but very few of the side-scrolling shooters in the 80’s had one, so I cannot fault PJSS for not having one. The boss battles are some of the most fun in any PixelJunk game and they each have a strategy to defeat them, but still offer increasing challenge on higher difficulties.

The engine that PixelJunk Sidescroller runs on is the continuation of the PixelJunk Shooter engine which is not a bad thing. The colors and presentation of some levels are very similar and they really meld well with the arcade feel and the arcade look of the screen. The game has a lot of great presentation values, from the sound to the music which is simplistic yet futuristic. It shows that a lot of thought and care went into its creation, and it oozes throughout it. The two player offline is cool, but it is also a let-down that it’s not available online, which would have sealed the deal. If you have a friend over though, this is a game you’ll want to mess around with for a while as the challenge alone will get you both enjoying the experience.

PixelJunk Sidescroller is one of those games that you will want to have on your PSN no matter if you never end up beating it or not.It has a three sectioned campaign that’s broken down into four stages per section. Each section ends in a boss battle that is both epic and frustrating, in a good way. Sidescroller is the type of game that’s easy to pick up and play, but holds so much depth that it will take a while to learn and master, like any good game. On top of that there are four total difficulties for players to get through. For the low price of $10, PixelJunk Sidescroller offers a whole lot of time consumption with a very good replay value. There can be some hair pulling involved, but it offers the difficulty of Dark Souls in a downloadable sidescrolling shooter, and the reward is just as satisfying.

Final Score: 4.5/5