technically beat it a while ago but buggy achievements kept it in my backlog until a mod fixed it!

extremely solid 2d platforming with wall jumping and dashing and bouncing and wee, only marred by some weird buggy physics every now and then (but levels are so short it never bothered me much) and the aforementioned buggy achievements, but otherwise extremely solid!!! and good, also

boing

This is a game I got as a part of this year's Jingle Jam Humble Bundle, and I got about halfway through it while waiting for Smash Bros to arrive two Fridays ago. Not wanting to leave a job unfinished, I sat down this morning and went through the last 50 levels. I played with a 360 gamepad and got all the apples in the main adventure, and it took me about 6 hours.

Slime-San is a Meat Boy-like platformer through and through to the point where I don't think it'd be entirely unfair to call it a "clone." A series of levels with an often out-of-the-way apple (like Meat Boy's bandages) to collect, and a speed-run time on each stage as well (also like Meta Boy). However, Slime-San has levels which are a series of 4 stages, each stage having its own apple but all 4 sharing one collective time goal (which can be insanely annoying if there's just ONE tough section near the end of a stage so you need to do the entire set of levels over again to get the time goal). The time trial stuff and apples are totally optional though. While Slime can wall-jump like Meat Boy, Slime can also slow-down time as well as do a dash. Slowing down time also causes Slime to go translucent and can pass through green objects. This differentiates Slime-San's playstyle pretty significantly from Meat Boy, and given the TONS of stages in Slime-San, there is plenty here to enjoy if this is more your style than Meat Boy.

The only things I wasn't so hot on are the smaller nuances of the platforming, which is really make or break for a game in this genre. Stages are filled with neutral platforms as well as both green and red. Slime can pass through the green platforms (as well as green enemies) whenever he goes translucent/slows down time. Combine this with how some enemies and platforms can disappear/reappear when you are or aren't slowing down time. Part of why the game can be frustrating at times is because you need to keep track of SO much stuff (especially when you have a deadly ghost following you, tracking your movements), part of it is because the 360 D-pad was absolutely trash as usual, but the last aggrivating part can be the ambiguous hit-boxes on platforms as well as Slime. There were MANY times where it seemed Slime would have a very generously small hit-box, and other times where he'd just skim along platforms but not actually get a jump off of them, or be so suddenly big that he'd die by touching a bad platform I could've sworn was pretty far away from the hit-box. Bad controller aside, Slime's floaty movement combined with his weird hit-box made the game a lot more aggrivating at times than it needed to be (especially as dashing up is often needed in harder stages to act as a second jump, and a finnicky/unclear character hit-box makes that a LOT harder :/ ).

The presentation of the game is fantastic. The music is great and the game has a kind of alt-Gameboy retro pallette going on. Lots of pretty pixel art done with only a few shades (although not genuinely monochrome) of green and red. There are also tons of little indie game characters and other references, sometimes genuine and sometimes changed just enough to be legal XD, that are fun to find around the game and the little city-area that you can muck around in between levels.

Verdict: Hesitantly Recommended. Perhaps all the negative control elements would be solved playing this with a Switch Pro Controller or something, but I'm fairly sure the faults in the mechanics of this aren't entirely down to my controller. It's a fine game and you'll probably enjoy it if you like this genre, but existing in such a crowded genre (especially on PC), you'll probably have a better time with something like Celeste or Super Meat Boy if you haven't already played those and just wanna check out his genre.

Really, really strong twitch platformer. Yes, it's long. Yes, there are arguably too many mechanics. But this is so good at training a player to get better at these types of games. Slow down mechanic is especially inspired as it doesn't extend your time limit but does let you practice your approach and movements and see exactly just how responsive the controls are and it's handy when used selectively. The visuals are divisive but I think they're hideous and cute in equal measure: the art direction certainly has personality. Lots of cool unlockables too including lots of crazy screen filters that may or may not make the game way harder. A hidden gem!

This game is sick, but as a fan of precision platformers, it's hard not to be critical of the sheer amount of mechanics. A lot of really novel ideas for the genre, but there's just so many gimmicks. Doesn't help that many of them seem to force the player into waiting for things...

That being said, the game is great at not throwing everything at you all at once. You're truly eased in. Beyond that the soundtrack rules, the presentation is nice, and the level of difficulty feels just right.

The physics are where I'm torn. When everything is working well, you truly feel like a champion wizzing through all the obstacles. On the other hand, I died a non-trivial amount of times to bouncing off of corners at weird angles.

There seems to be a lot of bonus content in this game, which is awesome. But while I like it overall, I can't imagine myself going back for it.