Freedom Fall is a short but extremely fun 2D action platformer where you play as Marsh, a prisoner in an enormously high tower. Your only chance to see the light of day again is to make your way down the tower while avoiding to die by the loads of flaming, spiking, buzzing and exploding traps and machineries, that the slightly crazy Princess has decorated the tower with.
STORYThe story is presented in a pretty cool way: There aren't any actual dialogues that distract you from the actual gameplay but instead the Princess communicates with you through writings on the tower walls (she is mute, anyway :p). The press describes it as a "reverse Rapunzel story" because you actually have to get away from the Princess instead of saving her. While fitting, there's also an inarguable similarity to Portal - if GlaDOS would be a medieval Princess who likes dragons. The basic idea of the "Escape-to-Freedom"-theme also reminded me a bit of the movie Running Man.
HUMORThe game has an absolutely great sense of humour, which is both cute and cynical. It's subtle enough to not make you feel like you NEED to laugh or chuckle now - you just do because it's genuinely funny without trying to hard. Charming all the way through.
VISUALSVisually, the game looks great and thankfully isn't another wannabe-retro 8-bit mess. All the art in the game is hand-drawn by concept artist Lisa Rye and has a colorful and vibrant feel to it. Especially Marsh and the Princess look absolutely awesome.
GAMEPLAYAs a nice change from the typical sidescrolling platformers, the gameplay is all about getting to the bottom of the tower. To do so, you have to utilize gadgets like bombs, gliders, double jumps or hover boards, which you can unlock by purchasing them for cogs and bolts that you have to collect throughout the levels. Unfortunately, the levels don't really vary in terms of gadget utilization, so you can effectively beat the game with the glider gadget only without ever touching the double jump or hover board gadget. A missed opportunity.
It's also sort of a precision platformer but due the relatively slow pace of the game (there aren't any visible timers or such that put you under pressure), it's not even remotely as stressful as, say, Super Meat Boy, so you can actually take your time and plan out the safest or most rewarding path downwards. There also are a few "racing" sections where you need to be fast, but they never get to the point where you feel like you need to be inhuman to beat them.
Dying is part of the game (I did so 206 times during my playthrough), so you will definitely get squashed, smashed, sliced, spiked, burned, bombed and electrocuted a lot, but thanks to the frequently placed checkpoints, it's not much of an annoyance and instead actually motivates you to just be better on your next try.
PLAYTIME & REPLAYABILITYWith roughly 2 hours for my first playthrough, the game definitely is rather short and can be beaten in one sitting if you wish to do so. However, the game features multiple endings and while I don't know how much the story varies after the split points, this definitely adds quite a bit to the replayability because it gets you intrigued as to how the story unfolds towards another ending.
Additionally, if you're a fan of leaderboards, you can try to make it to the top by finishing levels under death/time or over cog par and unlock their respective achievements. A hard mode is also available, but I have yet to try it, so right now I can't really say what the difference between normal and hard is.
CONCLUSIONI've gotten this game through a bundle and while it didn't look like a must-play-right-now type of game to me, I went on and actually tried it - and I'm absolutely glad I did. It's refreshing, fun and fairly casual, yet challenging enough to not get boring, but ultimately it's the humour and the writings and drawings that kept me going on until the end.
At it's regular non-sale price (8,99€/£6.99/$9.99) some people might consider the game overpriced for what few content it has to offer, so those people are probably better off waiting for a sale or until the game pops up in another bundle, but if you're looking for ~2 hours of great humour and fun action platforming
right now, Freedom Fall should be the game of your choice!