842nd played so far
Genre: Action
Platform: Various
Year of Release: 1987
Developer: Ocean Software
Publisher: Ocean Software
After I felt like we mostly neglected them for quite some time, I have been trying to play some more of these isometric action adventure games again. I touched Fairlight a month and a half ago and I’m going for Head Over Heels today, which has the same aesthetic and pixelly look, even if it’s meant to be more action based.
Our Thoughts
One of Head Over Heels‘ selling points are its dual protagonists, as you switch between two characters are you play the game. You start off separated, which for these purposes mean that I didn’t get as much of a feel of the interactions between the two, but it’s an interesting approach for these games.
Comparing this to Fairlight, this game helped me quite a bit by staying more focused on where you can go – rather than opening up the entire play area, there are only a few screens for each to check on. I still used a walkthrough to get hints and ideas of what to do, as the game doesn’t give you as much direction. In fact, the walkthrough partially taught me how to play and some of the later interactions. Still, the constrained area worked a lot better here anyway.
Is it great? I still struggle with the controls. It doesn’t look much better, and I think I’ve lost the skill to read these games as we don’t play them anymore – and so, while the game is an improvement, this thing simply doesn’t work as well.