Love Review – Tough Love

Love is a game that has been around since 2006. In 2008, the developer decided to remake it into a new engine as Love+ and with this newest iteration popping up on Steam, we have the end result of 8 years of game modifications. This game is called Love not for some romantic subplot, but for the love the developer has put into it.

I have to say, I’ve fallen a bit in love with it too.

Love is a platformer built to test your skills. It is minimalist in design so that every jump you make relies on the precision of the player. It was designed for those that enjoy a hard platformer and it is unique and fun enough to accommodate this.

Those of you looking for a massive platforming experience though should understand that this is a 12-level platformer. Add together the 10 extra levels of Fred Wood’s Love Custom and you have 22 short stages. The modes in Love and the conceptual design however make up for this. You can speedrun the game and try to show off your lead score. You can also try and make some no death runs, but good luck to you. The normal game starts you off with 100 lives and the first time I played it, I burned right through them. It took me three turns to clear the game with 100 lives so that should show you how tricky 12 small levels can really be. There are also a number of hidden extras and secret rooms thrown throughout the game that I challenge you to figure out without running to the Steam Community group.

Currently, Love sits as an Early Access game on Steam. For those curious what that means, it means that the developer is tweaking the game to get it integrated fully with Steamworks. For example, when I first booted it up I couldn’t screen capture, but now I can. There are a number of updates coming to the Love Custom section of the game, but for all extents and purposes, Love as a game is complete and I have no issue reviewing it as such.

Games like Love aren’t particularly rich or deep. They are hard and that’s what makes them particularly fun. For the value of $3, I found the game completely worth the price. The pixel-perfect platforming is super solid and I had fun even while dying hundreds of times.

Love is a lovely game.

Final Breakdown

[+Retro Graphics] [+Solid Platformer] [+$2.99] [+Plenty of Challenges] [+Hard but Fair] [+Secret Mini Game] [-Early Access]