League of Evil is like an abusive girlfriend. You play with her for a bit, she seems easy to be with at first and then BAM! Shes a bitch. Problem is with most abusive relationships…they’re kinda hard to put to rest, and i still havnt been able to put LoE to rest.
LoE is a platformer with an evil difficulty level. A platformer with over 100 levels that are perfectly designed for the short sharp bursts of gaming that suit mobile gaming so well. A level typically lasts under a minute from start to finish if you mange to 1.get a clear run and 2.not throw your phone against the wall because your just so. damn. dumb. Thats the the thing with LoE, its never the games fault. If i jump into the same set of spikes ten times in a row its my fault. If i mange to navigate 3 enemies via a combination of mid air dashes and wall jumps only to jump blindly into some more spikes, its my fault. This feeling that when things go wrong in the game, they go wrong because its my fault not the games, is because of one thing, the controls. The controls in LoE deserve universal praise. iOS is constantly hampered when it comes to more traditional games because for most people on screen controls just dont cut it. LoE changes this. The controls here are impeccable, they are tight, responsive and i never ever was made to feel like the game wasn’t understanding what i was trying to tell it. When it went wrong it went wrong because of me and me alone. Someone hire these people to make on screen controls work everywhere on iOS because they honestly restored my faith that iPhone games dont all have to be about throwing birds and cutting rope. This is a proper platformer and it properly works.
Secondly on LoE’s glowing report card is the graphics. Now il admit im a damn sucker for retro pixel art but the graphics here take some beating. The characters all have just that, character, its easy to tell at a glance who you should be avoiding and who you should be laying waste to and above all the game shifts. The game has an insatiable appetite for frames and it makes the whole experience smooth, which is imperative when your margin for error on jumps is minute.
Completing the trifecta of awesomeness is the soundtrack. Now obviously music is a very subjective thing but personally i love the soundtrack here, if it was available for sale (which it may well be in the future) Id be throwing notes at them already. Its suitably retro and suitably full of blips and beats that stick the 8 bit cherry on top of this 16 bit cake of retro styled greatness.
I dont do review scores but let me make this clear: LoE is THE platformer for iOS, its a shining example of what can be achieved on iOS when a developer takes the time to hone its controls and understand the platforms place in a players daily routine. Levels are designed to be played in short bursts, the graphics and soundtrack are exceptional and the controls are the benchmark for the system.
My review score is three… three words. GO BUY THIS.