Everlasting Love is worth the effort
Why haven't we seen more rhythm platformers since Donkey Kong Jungle Beat? And while we're at it, how come there aren't more games that feature primates? We were on the verge of sending out subpoenas and demanding answers from the video game industry's "top people," but then we stumbled upon Everlasting Love, a charming, monochrome game from homebrew developer Mia (Ninja & Zarbi, Oil Panic DS).
Following the single-song soundtrack (from We Love Katamari) and the monkey protagonist's head movements, players tap the A button to the beat. Just hitting the A button at all makes the simian character bounce around, but he jumps higher depending on how rhythmically accurate you are. You can use the directional pad to face which direction you want to pounce, but all movement is limited to hopping around.
While there's a lot of emphasis on staying with the rhythm, jumping as high as possible isn't the goal of the game -- you're actually meant to complete the levels with as few measured hops as possible. Some of the portions actually require you to jump off-beat, keeping your head down to avoid low-hanging spikes.
Everlasting Love can get pretty frustrating at times, but we're not sure if it's the fault of the game's or our own lacking abilities. Clearing the first pit took us a few tries before we could put it behind us, and the obstacles get exponentially harder after that. At version 0.1 though, Everlasting Love has a lot of potential to be the rhythm platformer we've been waiting for all these years.
[Via DCEmu]
