Guacamelee! review - Telegraph Structured like a Metroidvania, Guacamelee sees you, as hopeless luchador Juan, exploring the Mexican-themed world, learning abilities from a half-man half-goat, and generally being sent around the place in pursuit of your childhood sweetheart. New abilities lead to being able to access previously unreachable areas, often structured in much the way you'd expect: the downwards slam lets you break green blocks, uppercuts let you break red blocks, and so on. This opens up new routes, new avenues to explore and, in many cases, new life/stamina upgrades to find. The abilities list isn't just populated by various types of attack, however. Some more exciting moves come into play later, such as the ability to shift between dimensions, the ability to sprint up walls, and the ability to turn into a chicken, the latter naturally being the best of all by default. Puzzles are structured around these abilities, the 2D plane allowing for some excellent platforming sections, and a number of single-room combat scenarios pitting you against all manner of Mexican-themed enemies. Later in the game, shields are introduced; enemies have a colour-coded aura, and the only way to damage them is to use the move of the corresponding colour, which leads to some tactical fights when you have skeletons of yellow, blue, red and green vying to punch your face in, and can chain together combos to strip them of their shields. Less interesting are the white-shielded enemies, requiring a succession of hits to break their defences, and when these show up it can become a little bit of a frustrating juggling match. Combat's generally great all round, although the bosses gradually become somewhat cheap, with the last two in particular being far more annoying than necessary. These difficulty spikes are present throughout the game, although less so in the combat than the platforming. For the most part, the platform challenges are great; clever use of wall jumps, combat moves and other abilities being demanded of you as you string together enough different moves to cross a chasm, or make your way up a tower. But occasionally these challenges become excessively twitch-based, with lightning-fast reactions demanded, requiring you to shift between dimensions and chain moves together flawlessly. Sometimes the directional inputs for the different attacks aren't quite as responsive as they could be, and a platforming section can fall apart when a single incorrect move sends you catapulting back to the start. It's enjoyable, but immensely frustrating at times. The balance just isn't quite right, and passing some of these more aggravating challenges occasionally feels like you've mashed buttons and gotten by on the skin of your teeth, rather than pulled off a graceful series of moves. Unlike, say, Super Meat Boy, as the game gets progressively harder it becomes less fun, although never quite reaching off-putting territory. References and memes litter the game, everything from Majora's Mask cameos to rage comic catchphrases. Whether these will amuse or irritate is entirely down to taste, but for those looking for a bit of Internet humour in your background art, Guacamelee delivers in spades. It's definitely worth a try thanks to the great exploration and fluid combat systems, just make sure you have plenty of patience on hand.