In 2024 things will continue at full speed on the Metroidvania front. It's difficult to stand out here. The Danish-German developers Octato and Massive Miniteam are trying it out Airhead still their luck – with an unusual protagonist duo and lots of puzzles instead of fights.
You slip into the role of body. The name says it all, there is little to see above his shoulders. That soon changes when you hit the head and find the right lid for your pot. The catch: Head always wants to be supplied with air. During the course of the adventure together, you will now be responsible for feeding him new life force every few steps from generously distributed oxygen bottles.
Sound stressful? It often is. On your way you will constantly be faced with puzzles and they require a lot of brains, both in the proverbial and playful sense. The many headbutts are quite clever, but often so obscure that you lose yourself in wild trial and error – a circumstance in which the flow of the game suffers enormously and far too regularly. Spongy and unclean platform passages do the rest to consolidate this impression. You keep getting stuck on corners and edges – trying to keep an eye on your head's air balance often results in frustration. The optionally switchable hints are mixed and sometimes help more, sometimes less well in perplexing situations. As is typical of the genre, there are also some typical but also interesting upgrades waiting to be grabbed.
After all: visually pleasedAirhead with a dystopian world as a colorful backdrop for your adventure, even if the graphics don't deliver 60 frames per second.