Glitch's Trip Review

Meet Glitch, our little round green hero, as he realises that the four moons around his home planet are being drained of their life-giving Moon Juice by giant breweries. This Moon Juice is used to create one of the tastiest drinks in the galaxy, but his own world Verdo is disintegrating right under his feet. These breweries have to be stopped before they destroy everything, so Glitch steps up to the plate to be the hero to try and stop the destruction before it’s too late.  

Glitch’s Trip requires you to use your ninja skills because the gameplay is challenging and at times frustrating, but it’s so damn cute and charming you just have to keep trying. This is a twin-stick shooter with the movements of Glitch himself being the left thumbstick while the right thumbstick controls where his gun fires. Keep in mind there is recoil when you are shooting, so you will move backwards. Beware of your surroundings so you don’t fall into a pit of spikes or in the fire path of an enemy. Glitch can do the basic platformer moves like run, jump, shoot, and wall jump but he can use his special ability to phase into the background. This ability makes Glitch invulnerable for a few seconds so you can avoid being hit by enemies and shots coming right at you. This technique is incredibly useful when you are under attack so you will want to master using this because there are times when there are so many enemies and projectiles it is impossible to avoid getting hit. The game takes its time teaching you the ropes, so you won’t be overwhelmed trying to figure out how to do everything at once. I really appreciated the option to set your own custom controls, since I was finding it tricky to use the default left trigger button for jumping. I’m so used to hitting the A button to jump my muscle memory just didn’t like having to process the change. So once I changed the controls I was a lot more successful in the levels.

Glitch's Trip is a beautiful looking game with vibrant colours and graphic effects that look like they are from Geometry Wars. The music has an upbeat electronic dance music feel to it which matches the high energy feel you get from the visuals and the enemies. I never got tired of the music, no matter how many times I had to rechallenge some of the harder levels. Each level counts and records the amount of time it takes to clear the level. There is no time limit, but it pushes you to try and complete the level in the shortest time that you can. If you find the level too simple, you can always challenge that level on a harder difficulty and see how you fare. 

Glitch will travel to all four of the moons to try to take down the breweries that are trying to harvest all the moon juice that they can. These moons are not like Earth’s moon where you picture an empty monochrome environment. Each of these moons has its own feel and look, so you never get bored. To keep you on your toes, well on the ball is more accurate, there is a huge variety of hazards and enemies out to get our little spherical friend. If enemies constantly shooting at you isn’t bad enough, toss in spikes, lasers, snipers and exploding platforms. As you progress in Glitch's Trip you will begin to master the skills needed to survive, but don’t worry the game levels and enemies will also become more advanced the further you go so the difficulty level will still be there. 

It definitely takes time to get through the 100 different levels and boss battles that you will have to face on your journey. While playing it takes a bit of time to discover the whole layout of the level, where the enemies are hanging out and what is required to get to the door to complete it. Sometimes you will be required to destroy enemies that are tethered to a gate to open your way, or use your ability to phase and hit a button that will turn off green platforms and engage others for a short period of time. It definitely will take some experimenting but once you complete the level I would go back and rechallenge it since I knew exactly what I had to do and I wanted to get a record with a better completion time and less deaths. There is a lot of replayability in this game, especially if you challenge a friend to see who can get the better stats.

It is obvious that Glitch’s Trip has been influenced by a lot of other great platforming games from the past like Ninja Gaiden and Super Meat Boy, but it becomes its own thing by combining the platforming elements with a twin-stick shooter. It looks and sounds amazing making it a joy to play, even when I am constantly dying because I timed a jump wrong or got blasted into spikes by an enemy. I kept wanting to jump right back in to try again, it is the perfect mix of being challenging but not so ridiculously hard that you want to put down the controller and walk away. If you love platforming, twin-stick games that will challenge you, Glitch’s Trip is a must play!