I’m not saying my eldest knows me well at this point but I had to nod shamefully when they asked did I buy this game just because it had “Willy” in the title.

I’m not sorry though.

A side view pixelly alien landscape, brown rocks covered in blue grass and purple plants, a waterfall plunges into a lake below, alien looking trees sit in the background. The player, a small astronaut, stands by the lake.

I’m sort of ducking in and out of this a bit. It’s not that I don’t like it, it’s that it’s such slow progress getting anywhere that I find I get the most out of it playing through small chunks at a time.

I’m a fair few hours spent and really, I don’t feel like I’ve made it far at all. Just looking at the huge amount of upgrades still unavailable to me and the cost of them suggests unless the game surprises me, it’ll keep me going for a while.

It’s not even an especially difficult game so far, anyone used to sort of 8 bit arcade adventures won’t find much in the way of surprises. You meander round a bit, do a bit of jetpacking here and there, shoot some baddies and grab objects to plonk in another object.

The slow progress is largely down to enemies taking a long time to chip away at and the materials for upgrades being slight whilst the cost of upgrades are high.

It's a pixel cavern with a rocky entrance, a metal save point and a very videogamey shop.

I can totally understand if that’s off putting – certainly, me of ten years ago would be having none of it.

But! I’m not me of ten years ago and I largely don’t care. I tend to like this sort of arcade adventure, thanks to no longer needing a multiface to save me having to repeat sections (and to save at all, I suppose) I’m fine with pushing forward achingly slowly providing I’m fine with the rest of the game. Which so far, I am.

Well. Except for the ‘jokes’. I’m rarely fine with videogame jokes but even by videogame joke standards, I definitely pulled a few faces at these. Still! Worse things happen at sea, eh?

Anyway, unless it does something especially awful I’m likely to see it through to the end. Can’t complain too much then and it’s maybe worth a look if you fancy a slow crawl through one of the older videogame formats around. Luckily, I do.

Willy Jetman is available on a few machines, as usual I’ve been playing the PS4 version.


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