It was on Game Pass, and I really wanted more of the villains from the first game after playing Guacamelee 2, so I decided to play through this today. It is very much more Guacamelee, as is probably easy to guess. More brawling + Metroidvania gameplay, just as the second one continues, but it's surprisingly different from the second one in ways I didn't quite remember. It took me about 6.5 hours to 100% the game on normal mode.
It's Guacamelee like it's always been. Beat 'em up arenas intermixed with platforming corridors that use your brawling special moves to help navigate them, both done very well. The brawling is fun, and the platforming is tricky without being super frustrating. The only really tricky times I had with it where when I'd just forget which buttons did what XP. Especially in the more difficult platforming sections you need to do to get the best ending, hitting the bumper that turns you into a chicken instead of the one that toggles between the living and dead worlds is a mistake I made more often than I'd like to admit XP. The brawling isn't super hard unless you're going for the best ending, and especially if you're going for 100% area completion like I did. There are some really killer arenas in some optional sections.
I definitely prefer the writing in this game over the second game's. The first Guacamelee is often irreverent and silly, but not in a way that was really breaking my suspension of disbelief. There are pop culture references here and there (especially in the luchador wrestling promotional posters in the background), but for the most part, the dialogue is funny/silly by virtue of the characters themselves having good personality injected into them. SO much of the second game's humor is reveling in how DGAF it is about referencing pop culture and memes that it makes the humor feel far more one-note and less memorable. Guacamelee 1's villains have so much more personality to them than the 2nd game's and the main story has some genuinely sweet moments (though they're easy to miss) to the point where I'd easily put the first game's writing above the second's. Guacamelee 2 makes jokes at itself in the form of Youtube comments calling filling your game with tons of memes "lazy writing and not very funny", and while it's nice that the game itself acknowledges that kind of complaint, it doesn't make it feel any less true when you compare it to how well the first game handled its humor.
As far as differences mechanically from the 2nd game, there is a little more than I remembered there being. I knew that the chicken form being able to fight was something introduced in the second game. What I had forgotten was what the second game outright removed. First, the costumes Juan and his co-op partner Tostada can wear aren't just cosmetic in this game, they grant passive buffs and debuffs to reward certain playstyles (like halving your health in exchange for more stamina and life-draining melee attacks, or giving you infinite stamina but no way to heal). They're a neat way to spice up how you play that I missed in the second game. The other feature completely removed from the sequel is the Intenso meter, which lets you transform into Intenso Mode and get far stronger attacks for as long as you can keep your combo meter up. That's a nice panic button for when things get hard, but Guacamelee 2 is so much easier than this game that while it's unfortunate that the sequel canned that feature, it's not as significant a loss as the costume abilities (and this game overall just has way more costumes than the 2nd despite the 2nd game recycling some costumes from this one). Aside from that, the two games' combat is nigh identical, with even enemy types being almost entirely the same between games.
The presentation graphically and musically is just fine. I think this game's music might be a little bit better on the whole, but that may just be me imagining things. Both games have pretty similar-sounding music, but the graphical quality is a much larger difference. It's a very similar stylization, but the first game is from last gen and it shows. It's not an ugly game, but it doesn't look quite as good as the 2nd game.
Verdict: Highly Recommended. This is closer to the lower end of my highly recommended games, but it's still up there. Guacamelee is a game I love a lot more than I thought I did until this playthrough, and it's really surprising just how much better than the sequel it is. The sequel is a bit longer, perhaps, but with how little it changes compared to how much it outright removes or makes less good, I can easily recommend the first game over the 2nd. If you want a not-too-long Metroidvania with a brawler-twist, Guacamelee 1 is definitely the place to get it UwU
It's Guacamelee like it's always been. Beat 'em up arenas intermixed with platforming corridors that use your brawling special moves to help navigate them, both done very well. The brawling is fun, and the platforming is tricky without being super frustrating. The only really tricky times I had with it where when I'd just forget which buttons did what XP. Especially in the more difficult platforming sections you need to do to get the best ending, hitting the bumper that turns you into a chicken instead of the one that toggles between the living and dead worlds is a mistake I made more often than I'd like to admit XP. The brawling isn't super hard unless you're going for the best ending, and especially if you're going for 100% area completion like I did. There are some really killer arenas in some optional sections.
I definitely prefer the writing in this game over the second game's. The first Guacamelee is often irreverent and silly, but not in a way that was really breaking my suspension of disbelief. There are pop culture references here and there (especially in the luchador wrestling promotional posters in the background), but for the most part, the dialogue is funny/silly by virtue of the characters themselves having good personality injected into them. SO much of the second game's humor is reveling in how DGAF it is about referencing pop culture and memes that it makes the humor feel far more one-note and less memorable. Guacamelee 1's villains have so much more personality to them than the 2nd game's and the main story has some genuinely sweet moments (though they're easy to miss) to the point where I'd easily put the first game's writing above the second's. Guacamelee 2 makes jokes at itself in the form of Youtube comments calling filling your game with tons of memes "lazy writing and not very funny", and while it's nice that the game itself acknowledges that kind of complaint, it doesn't make it feel any less true when you compare it to how well the first game handled its humor.
As far as differences mechanically from the 2nd game, there is a little more than I remembered there being. I knew that the chicken form being able to fight was something introduced in the second game. What I had forgotten was what the second game outright removed. First, the costumes Juan and his co-op partner Tostada can wear aren't just cosmetic in this game, they grant passive buffs and debuffs to reward certain playstyles (like halving your health in exchange for more stamina and life-draining melee attacks, or giving you infinite stamina but no way to heal). They're a neat way to spice up how you play that I missed in the second game. The other feature completely removed from the sequel is the Intenso meter, which lets you transform into Intenso Mode and get far stronger attacks for as long as you can keep your combo meter up. That's a nice panic button for when things get hard, but Guacamelee 2 is so much easier than this game that while it's unfortunate that the sequel canned that feature, it's not as significant a loss as the costume abilities (and this game overall just has way more costumes than the 2nd despite the 2nd game recycling some costumes from this one). Aside from that, the two games' combat is nigh identical, with even enemy types being almost entirely the same between games.
The presentation graphically and musically is just fine. I think this game's music might be a little bit better on the whole, but that may just be me imagining things. Both games have pretty similar-sounding music, but the graphical quality is a much larger difference. It's a very similar stylization, but the first game is from last gen and it shows. It's not an ugly game, but it doesn't look quite as good as the 2nd game.
Verdict: Highly Recommended. This is closer to the lower end of my highly recommended games, but it's still up there. Guacamelee is a game I love a lot more than I thought I did until this playthrough, and it's really surprising just how much better than the sequel it is. The sequel is a bit longer, perhaps, but with how little it changes compared to how much it outright removes or makes less good, I can easily recommend the first game over the 2nd. If you want a not-too-long Metroidvania with a brawler-twist, Guacamelee 1 is definitely the place to get it UwU