Humble Bundle key redemption is awesome again (mostly) but the games are kinda meh

Just put a couple hours into Greak: Memories of Azur, from the latest bundle.

If it weren’t for the fact that we are living through a renaissance of some of the greatest combat platformers ever in the last three or four years, then this would be a really stand-out game. Lovely hand-drawn art, a smooth difficulty curve, nice guidance through a relatively open world. The combat works fine, but isn’t particularly challenging (I’m cool with that myself) or particularly original. I’ve only gotten a quick glimpse of one of the game’s few unique elements, which is the ability to manage multiple characters at once. You can switch between direct control of each one, but you can also move around in “mimic mode” where every character follows your controls, or use a catch-up button that brings the other characters to your active character. I’m a little worried that when these become constant features they’re going to get a little burdensome.

Each of the three characters seems to have its own style of fighting and jumping (I’ve just seen the sword swinging, double jumping Greak and his magic projectile-firing, levitating sister so far). So it seems like there’s at least a decent amount of variety in the game.

If you got the bundle, this is worth checking out! It’s not going to unseat Hollow Knight, but it’s well made.