A Pixel Story is a unique game because not only does it offer us a glimpse into advancements in game development, it is also presented in an open world-like format. A Pixel Story is a puzzle platformer at its core but you can traverse the complex environments freely. At the beginning of the experience you gain the ability to teleport through the use of a hat and that helps you solve a multitude of problems. There are six different zones and you have to pick up various collectibles to save the world. Now who do you have to save the world from? Well, it’s an evil operating system.
A Pixel Story doesn’t have the most captivating narrative but its challenging and surprisingly addictive gameplay is the main attraction. The puzzles require a lot of thought as to where you should place your teleporting hat. It’s hard to explain without giving an example. Let’s say that you have to cross a bridge that only stays up for a second but the lever to activate it is on the other side of the map. To overcome this obstacle you have to place your hat next to the bridge and then go to the lever and pull it. Now you have to teleport back which allows you to jump over the bridge before it retracts. Obviously the puzzles are much more complex than that but the mechanics are the same.
Just like Evoland, the game’s visuals improve the further you progress in the story. The beginning is rather simple with pixelated graphics and coins that look like cardboard cutouts but towards the end it rivals titles like Oddworld: New ’n’ Tasty! in my opinion. A Pixel Story is the only game on consoles that features this evolution. I’m not sure what it is about games like these but I just love them. I think Evoland and Evoland 2 are absolutely phenomenal and A Pixel Story is up there. While I would’ve liked more complex gameplay, A Pixel Story is still a blast to play.
The game features role-playing elements as well. During the course of the campaign you meet numerous characters that give you quests. While the solutions to the quests revolve around platforming, it still makes A Pixel Story have more depth than your average title. It’s little touches like these that make the game a richer experience.
My only complaints would have to be how the game requires a lot of reading and how the controls aren’t tight. Don’t get me wrong, I love text-based adventures like Joe Dever’s Lone Wolf and Torment: Tides of Numenera but A Pixel Story feels like a chore. The dialogues aren’t engaging or offer you a myriad of choices. A good way to overcome this would’ve been to add some form of voice acting. Gamers only read countless paragraphs if the content is stimulating and necessary. A Pixel Story lacks that.
The controls are responsive but they aren’t as precise as games like Ori and the Blind Forest or Rogue Legacy. I honestly don’t know why this is the case because the game runs smoothly on Xbox One and doesn’t have performance issues. I don’t know if this is a product of the slow-paced gameplay or if the controls didn’t translate well from A Pixel Story’s keyboard and mouse origins. They just aren’t as tight as I would’ve liked them because sometimes the game require precise platforming.
Summary
A Pixel Story is a great game that offers countless challenges. Aside from the campaign which features evolving visuals, the title contains dungeons and upgrades. Despite its initial deceptive pixelated nature, A Pixel Story is a multifaceted product. There’s nothing like it on Xbox One if you look at it through the lens of the visual-upgrades gameplay it offers.
Asher is a games journalist, former News Writer (Gaming) at Windows Central. They contributed 1110 articles to ICXM between 2015–2017, focused on opinion pieces, game reviews, Windows and PC, and Xbox news: wrote over 1,100 ICXM pieces on Xbox news, hardware reviews, and platform commentary before joining Future plc’s Windows Central in 2017.