When I first watched the trailer for Teslagrad, I was skeptical as most platformers that I play never truly live up to my expectations. However, I can safely say that Teslagrad has blown past them in every way possible. The story for the game is truly gripping and immerses you into the world almost immediately without having a word of dialogue. The art for the game is absolutely amazing for a simple platformer and the emotions of the game really flow through it. The controls were very well done and surprising for how many tools you have to use to complete the game. The puzzles were all complicated enough to where it was never too easy but it also wasn’t so difficult that you were forced to look at a guide or give up out of frustration.
The game starts off mysteriously with an older man dropping off a young child to a woman at a lone house in the dead of night. Then he quickly runs away leaving the baby behind. The child lives a peaceful life until suddenly men in red military garb show up at his house. The woman tells him to run out the back door and the boy reluctantly runs away as men storm in. You are the young boy, a teslamancer, thrust into this ancient battle between teslamancers and Elektropia’s king. Your journey is to fulfill the prophecy that one day a young teslamancer will rise up and dethrone the king. It also has about 10 hours worth of story content if you don’t run past everything with some challenges at the end which add to the overall content.
Throughout the game, the story is shown to you through plays and actions and continues to shock you even until the very end. At the end of it all, I felt emotionally exhausted by both the story and the challenges I had to face to get there, but even after enduring all of the challenges that the game had to offer, I felt extraordinarily accomplished because I came out on top.
There are also multiple endings to this game if you manage to find all the ancient scrolls. Suffice to say, Teslagrad wants you to keep coming back for more. After you finish the game there is a challenge mode with extra levels for the people that have truly mastered the game. I will give you a little nugget of advice by saying collecting all the scrolls is very worth it.
This game is absolutely beautiful in almost every way possible. The art for the game was stellar and reflects the mood of the game perfectly. The frame rate felt fluid the whole time and I never encountered any weird lag spikes. Overall it ran perfectly on my Xbox One and looked just as good.
The game uses almost every button on your controller and sometimes very rapidly so controls are very important to this game. It’s not just one button you have to press. The developers definitely came through in a big way when programming it. It never felt clunky despite some minor problems. Oftentimes when I would try to pan down with the control stick, it would end up moving me too far and straight to my death. There were also a few times when trying to use a staff later in the game would get difficult after dashing. In a genre where every movement matters, it was almost perfect.
Every minute of this game was enjoyable but also very challenging. Teslagrad definitely delivers in the complexity and uniqueness of its puzzles. The boss fights were very thought out and often took a few tries to really get but, in the end, felt very rewarding after you beat them. A lot of the puzzles are accomplished with items you get throughout the game and using the items perfectly is the key to the title. While you are journeying through the game, finding these items really makes you feel like you are progressing instead of just jumping a lot.
The game map wasn’t really straight forward but you never really got lost while going through the levels. I wish that would’ve been improved. There were a few times that it was unnecessarily difficult or a checkpoint wouldn’t actually work. If these few problems were fixed then this game could easily become perfect.
Summary
Teslagrad delivers in every gameplay aspect it should as a puzzle platformer and really brings in a heart-wrenching story through unique actions instead of just the normal dialogue you would get in other titles. The fair difficulty truly makes this game shine and makes it a great experience for players. I truly think more platformers could learn from this game on how to truly immerse your audience. This game broke me so many times but with every defeat and every failed jump it just grew my urge to beat the game and by the end of it I couldn’t help but smile.
Noel was a regular ICXM contributor in 2016, publishing 83 articles across game reviews, Windows and PC, and Xbox news. Their work focused on hands-on reviews, platform commentary, and breaking-news reporting during the run-up to Xbox One S and Project Scorpio, plus the broader Windows 10 gaming push.