Curse Crackers: For Whom the Belle Toils made my heart jingle

This game is very clearly channeling the Game Boy Color, right down to me wishing it had a manual. Because it feels like they missed a few tutorials that would’ve been covered by a small booklet back in the day. Other than that and a few odd points of game balance, this is an indie game that I really enjoyed!

I just finished Ninja Gaiden 4, and I now have four games in my review backlog. So, I’m going to start by reviewing Curse Crackers: For Whom the Belle Toils.

Perhaps it’s nostalgia and a function of my age, but I feel like the Game Boy Color was a peak moment in gaming history. Ignoring how hard it was to play anywhere that wasn’t outdoors or next to a lamp, the device finally had just enough color to be usable, and just enough buttons to be usable. It was the minimum viable gaming device. So I love seeing indie devs self-impose similar limitations on their games.

In my recent review of Pokémon Legends: Z-A, I roasted it for trying too hard to look good, and ending up looking awful. If you set your sets on looking “worse” (Game Boy Color), you can be consistent, artistic, and end up looking amazing.

I love the large GBC-style sprites in this game, especially the color choices.

This game does have combat, but it’s pretty limited. You play as Belle, a girl with a magical bell companion named Chime, which functions similarly to Mario Odyssey’s Cappy. You can throw Chime to hit enemies, or bounce off of it to propel yourself.

Also like the 3D Mario games, Belle has a few different jump commands: regular, high jump, and long jump. Because this is ostenibly a two button game (plus dash), this can get a little confusing to pull off the long jump reliably depending on your controller in the heat of the moment.

  • 🅰️ Jump
  • ⬇️🅰️ High jump
  • ↘️🅰️ Long jump
One of many, many secrets you'll find in the game... I was too busy to uncover all of them.

If you want secrets, this game is absolutely loaded with extras. I got tired just reading how to unlock the bonus character, lol. Some of the challenge levels truly tested my patience, and I didn’t feel up for trying them.

I love her imposing aura here.

I think maybe Colorgrave got too good at their own game while playtesting the Bonnie fight. Or maybe they were expecting everyone to use the game’s not very well explained healing items. For the entire game’s runtime, you have exactly 3 HP… and this boss, if you’re not careful, will cover the entire screen in projectiles.

After tons of practice, and switching to a hyper aggressive playstyle, I was able to eventually eke out a victory with a single HP left. Despite being several bosses from the end, this was the hardest fight in the game for me by a large margin.

Tedra is peak character design to me.

The game starts off fairly straightforward in terms of platforming, but it definitely ramps up in difficulty after the first few worlds. You can play most of the game without using the sprint button (hold RT, which I don’t think they ever mention in game?)… a feature which I actually really didn’t like. The game already has a pretty high movement speed, and holding that down almost feels like you’re using some kind of speedrunner movement exploit, lol.

I wish it was a short burst of momentum you could pull off on the ground, rather than a button that instantly increases your forward velocity at any moment (even when already midair).

There’s a handful of Zelda-style side quests, and the characters are cute and fun to talk with. I enjoyed getting to hear more about about the world of Colorgrave, and I look forward to playing more games in their shared fiction :)

You can pet the dog!