Here's an unexpected delight! Flynn: Son of Crimson is an excellent platformer from Californian indie team Studio Thunderhorse.
With its lush pixel art style and orchestral soundtrack, we dug this one a lot. It's a fantabulous little platformer and we to celebrate the SOB here.
Glorious Homage to '90s SNES Platforming in Flynn: Son of Crimson
This thing launched in September 2021 and it's available on Steam, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One. Which is nice.
It reminds us a bit of Kaze and the Wild Masks, another 2D platformer nodding to the glorious SNES era in the 1990s.
Flynn: Son of Crimson riffs off that rather heavily, but styles many of its gameplay mechanics around modern indie games such as Shovel Knight.
Across 40 unique stages, you have to battle your way past enemies and solve puzzles. All very good! Along the way you collect gems to unlock stuff and upgrade your equipment during post-level shops.
There's a plot, too! As the player, you take control of the young boy Flynn who lives on Cardinal Island.
He has a pet, the mythical dog Dex. He takes her out for a walk, but Dex has her spirit guardian skills drained by the evil SOB antagonist Rozia. It's your job to fight through the game and get the four guardian spirits back. And that plays out like... this!
Despite its cartoony looks (some glorious pixel art, right there), Flynn: Son of Crimson is combat heavy and pretty violent.
Initially, we suspected the game would be pretty twee. But it's not really and his surprising depths as a game with excellent level design, attention to detail, and just a great atmosphere to everything.
We went in to this one not expecting much, but came out delighted with it as a great platformer that just does everything you want from this type of game.
It doesn't reinvent the genre in any way. It's just a fantastic homage to '90s era SNES and Mega Drive platformers. And we can't grumble about that.
Games like this excel where they make you feel like you're going off on an important, perilous adventure. And Flynn: Son of Crimson delivers on that, with a plucky batch of characters you can guide towards a heroic conclusion.
Flynn: Son of Crimson's Splendiferous Soundtrack
Swedish composer Jacob Lincke is behind the sweeping soundtrack. It's an excellent piece of work, featuring memorably melodies and other catchy hooks.
Lincke is a young composer who lives in Gothenburg in Sweden. His official site states:
"His scores aim to embrace the beauty of every emotion, bridging the gap between visual art and audio."
For his work on this game, he went for melodic and symphonic numbers inspired by games such as The Legend of Zelda series. It all works a treat.
Our only complaint is there weren't enough numbers featuring gangster rap or country music numbers about achy breaky hearts.
Maybe that's us nit-picking, but we like to have at least one number about gunning your bro down with a gun cos he snarked on your new sneakers. Or some such.
Otherwise, it's a fantastic soundtrack. Kudos, Mr. Lincke. We hope to hear more from you soon.
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