Exception

While it can be frustrating to just barely overjump something or miss hitting an enemy while you’re racing through, this only encourages players to retry for a better score. The game’s difficulty is perfectly balanced for either jumping from level to level to progress through the story, or to step it up a notch and go for a perfect score on every world. At the time of writing, we were not able to use the online leaderboards, but once the game is released it should step up the competitiveness and require players to think strategically about their moves to rack up level bonus on top of their time score.

Exception delivers a fast-paced, flashy 2.5D action that leaves you with no time to think. If you would stop and think, flaws would emerge. So too much thinking equals a lousy experience, with no exception. If your brain feels sleepy, but you wanna stay up and play some video games - this is a choice for you.

Sadly, there’s no way to know what life in a computer is actually like. Exception does a damn fine job of imagining it, though. If nothing else, I hope that any sufficiently-advanced AI civilization would naturally gravitate towards neon and synth. I never got enough mileage out of the special moves, but I did love zipping around this weird little world. The soundtrack alone is almost worth the price of admission, which should lay bare my artistic priorities. If your dreams of entering the net remain withered, perhaps a little time with Exception will soothe your soul.

Exception is a fun, aesthetically pleasing game. But it offers little to keep the player invested. Some new game modes would be an awesome addition.

Exception is, by and large, a great game that introduces a unique and compelling twist to the platforming genre with its transforming levels. There's plenty of incentive to play for the long haul with a good focus on speedrunning and simply stunning visuals, but those looking for a good story driven experience may be disappointed. There's room for improvement, though, specifically with its sometimes cumbersome jumping and relatively poor boss fights. Its short overall length might put some people off, too, but if you're after a slick-looking action platformer, this is a virus you'll want to catch.

Overall, while a few design decisions miss their mark, Exception is a thrilling, breakneck platformer with solid level design that begs to be rerun until you dominate the leaderboards.

Watching the trailer for Exception beforehand gave me the confidence that this was going to be one of those delightful surprise drops that are the perfect fit for handheld play. It’s a real shame that wasn’t the case as I can honestly see a good game hidden behind the fog of repetitive level design and a less than desirable control system. The whole flip mechanic is a genuinely good idea pressed further in how everything instantly folds back to the beginning in failure. It’s just unfortunate that when sewn together, Exception struggles to learn from the 2D platformers that it clearly draws inspiration from.