Golden Force

While games like Shovel Knight utilize the rose-tinted memories of retro gaming to full effect, Golden Force delivers the white-knuckle reality. For those who regularly replay older games, Golden Force will feel right at home and take some time to fully master. For those who are just looking for a good time, the game is harder to recommend simply because of the frustration inherent in progressing through it.

Golden Force is an enjoyable romp, but its steep difficulty and straightforward design prevent it from rising above the trappings of the games that inspired it. It’s definitely worth a look for anyone who enjoys the run ‘n’ gun style of the games of yore, even if it can be controller-throwingly difficult.

Golden Force manages to offer a well-balanced platforming experience, with functional battle mechanics, exceptional level design, co-op and a difficulty that can push players to their limits and often test their patience. Had it built upon its overall gameplay experience, it could have had an even sweeter place in our minds and hearts.

Old-school action and platforming meet in Golden Force. It’s not the most original game, but it’s a good choice for those looking for a challenging 2D experience.

There’s a good game in here somewhere and I really want it to break the surface, but performance issues and questionable difficulty are holding down a great game.

It is a good challenge for players who enjoy breaking records and scores and pleasant at the controls as long as they are willing to overlook its technical problems.

Golden Force is a fun, retro, side-scrolling experience not for the faint of heart. Full of challenging battles and pixelated fun, this run-n-gun will keep you on your toes.

Much of Golden Force is very, very good. Any diehard fan of 16-bit games will find a lot to like, but in an age where games like this are common, Golden Force is too technically flawed and too hard to recommended to all but the most dedicated players.

Golden Force is a platform for hardcore and tenacious gamers. It has good pixel-art and a powerful soundtrack. It is fun but some choices of game design are far from perfect. Its bad camera and its artificial difficulty can discourage many players.

If you have the patience to persevere through its irritatingly tricky segments, Golden Force can be a rewarding fun-filled adventure.

It’s disappointing that Golden Force falls down in the areas that it does, because without these fixable issues it would be an easy recommendation – level design is mostly strong, the boss battles marry spectacle with varied and fun-to-learn attack strings nicely, and it feels good to get stronger and play better. Unfortunately, some rookie errors come close to spoiling the fun altogether, but if you’re bloody-minded enough to muscle through these frustrations there is undoubtedly a lot to appreciate about Golden Force. Which is a shame, in a sense, because “Golden Farce” would have been a perfect tagline for this review. The one we’ve had to opt for is rubbish, by comparison. (It’s not as easy as you might think, this game-reviewing lark.)

Taken on its own, Golden Force is decent. It looks wonderful, with some solid combat mechanics and very engaging boss fights. Start to compare it to other pixel platformers on the system, and you'll come to lament the forced trial-and-error gameplay, tedious combat, and unnecessarily broken upgrade economy. Patient players may stick it out, but for everyone else, the Switch has plenty of other well-crafted platformers.