Electro Man

A platformer with deadly spikes and frozen enemies — that's Electro Man, and I returned it to the store thirty years ago. Back in 1992, when every other platformer looked like a Mario mutation, hardly anyone took this game seriously. That was a mistake.

A brutal gauntlet with dozens of levels where you're an armored tough guy who simply has to make it from right to left without getting killed by electric pillars, flying spheres, or dudes who howl on the rails. No complex puzzles, no story mode. Just platforming reflexes and timing that gets worse with each level. The controls are primitive, which isn't a criticism — they're precise. Jumps, shots, you get three seconds per level, and back then I knew that system cold.

The challenge is in the progressive difficulty that indie devs love today, but here without the pretentious motivation and without loudly bragging about how hard it is. Electro Man simply believes you'll get frustrated. I remember the sounds more than the music — the jump beep, the electricity crackle, that fuel sound. The graphics are monochrome and utterly dull, a puzzle without garnish. The only color it had came from those level names, which I can't recall now.

It aged poorly because it bets everything on pure skill and dozens of retries. Without mid-level saves, you're looking at heartbreak when you slip up in the final second. The modern player, spoiled by checkpoints every meter, won't touch this. But if you could stomach it — if you could remember that pure feel from the nineties when games weren't smeared with story and cutscenes didn't exist — it might surprise you today.

Playing it now in a browser is a crime. It's not a love letter to retro, it's not a brilliant game. It's forgotten mediocrity that sometimes works when you forget all your expectations and just dive in. Give it a shot.