A Hole New World Review

First Press Games are about to arrive on the Nintendo Switch limited-print physical release scene.

The Germany-based publisher’s first title is one which originally arrived on the system’s eShop back in March of 2018. A Hole New World tells the story of a world split in two, with an Upside Down World quite literally existing right underneath the main one. Yet there’s no Stranger Things characters in sight.

This is an NES-style, pixel art, platformer which makes use of arcade shooting mechanics. You play as the Potion Master, negotiating landscapes and dungeons by making deft use of jumping and also firing off projectiles to take out enemies and battle bosses.

There are a range of different projectiles to be unlocked as you make your way through the game. The first one is an annoying looping one, which will sail over enemies if you’re standing too close. Others might cast lighting in a vertical line and must be aimed with great precision, as they fall one square away from where the Potion Master is standing, increasing the risk of being hit by the monsters you’re trying to take out.

But the game’s unique selling point as far as retro platformers go is that it’s done away with the rule that the gaps in the floor are an abyss that should be avoided at all costs. No, falling down them results in the Potion Master ending up in the Upside Down, where the platforming continues but simply flips on its axis. Left and right button commands still work just the same, but your character is at the top of the screen in the Upside Down, and your brain must be able to get around the idea of jumping resulting in you heading downwards on the screen rather than up.

However, the experience of playing in the Upside Down world never feels different enough to that of playing in the original orientation. Enemies still have the same patterns of attack and you still do away with them in exactly the same way. More needed to be made of this upside-down gameplay, for sure. As it is, with such a short runtime, the Upside Down world was nowhere near memorable enough to cement itself in this reviewer’s memory for anything longer than the short-term. It needed something a little more unique – perhaps an increased difficulty in comparison to the normal world.

It is a particularly short game for its genre too. Just a handful of levels mean two hours is a reasonable time to expect to have the game finished, and the only real obstruction to that will be the difficulty. This is a tough game, make no mistake – particularly when accuracy with projectiles is so difficult to achieve. Fortunately, you can take a decent amount of hits before succumbing, and your fairy partner Fäy can revive you at points where you run of health. It’s forgiving, though – respawn points mean you don’t have to go back too far if you die and their inclusion will prompt more players to push on to the finish.

If you’re a dab hand with an NES controller, or spent a good amount of time with the NES Mini in the last couple of years, you’ll be ready to handle the challenges that A Hole New World provides. While this is a considerably difficult game, it’s by no means on the level of a Castlevania or Ghouls ‘N Ghosts.