Beton Brtual is so fucking tedious that even the method of save scumming I used to make it a palatable experience was dull. When I first started playing it, its blend of precision platforming, tightly designed landscapes, and brutalist architecture-inspired art style wowed me. And then I hit a brick wall. And I kept hitting it. And suddenly, the game lost its zing. It became monotonous, a chore to sit through even at the peak of its vertigo-inducing, pants-shitting intensity. I felt I had an obligation to complete it, though; after all, I gave it four stars! In the immortal words of Kent Mansely himself, "This sort of thing is why it's so important to chew your food."

Fundamentally, my biggest issue with Beton Brutal is that it's convinced, no, insistent that forgiving the player for their mistakes is the wrong thing to do. In smaller spaces where the tension in each jump comes organically and doesn't feel contrived in the slightest, it's right. Those four stars I gave it came before I was faced with the wall spike section or the ice area. Even if its challenge remained organic throughout, though, I doubt it would have remained compelling. Without the inch that a proper saving system might give you, the emotional agony of taking a plunge no longer hits as powerful and just becomes dulling. The rewarding sense of discovery I mentioned in that old review only registers as long as the game manages to feel fresh rather than forcing you into the most rote, mechanical playstyle imaginable in the name of being "hardcore." I'm sorry, that's not "hardcore." I do, however, have a more apt phrase in my vocabulary for that: "self-indulgent and boring."

By the time I managed to complete Beton Brutal, it failed to convince me that games can be made without checkpoints. In fact, it persuaded me of the complete opposite. Checkpoints are not inherently a bad thing, and if you're looking to make your game feel intense and nerve-wracking, you can still integrate them into your game and give your players the same effect. Have them be a reward, or randomized, or hidden. What you do by removing any semblance of a saving system is, ironically, make all forms of progression feel stilted and unremarkable. Given that Beton Brutal has no narrative to rely on or any evident lore, that sense of mundanity feels as though it couldn't have been more than a side-effect. Embrace the gimmicky nature of it all, embrace save scumming! As Backloggd user Momoka eloquently puts in their review for the GameCube remake of Resident Evil, you can have a game that isn't traditionally fun and let the people playing your game save. If you force me to save my game every time I need to take a break, or every time I force the game closed in a particular way, that just feels like the pettiest form of punishment. With nothing to really justify it other than the developer insisting on it, I feel forced to reduce my evaluation of Beton Brutal to a scale that this developer is keenly aware of: spiteful minimalism.

I want to like Beton Brutal, but throughout the ten hours I put into it, it rarely let me. If uninviting games are your bread and butter, I suppose you'll chalk up all of the issues I have with it as me just being bad at the game. I can't say you're wrong. But I can't say you're right, either. You shouldn't need to be "good" at a game to enjoy it. If failing at games is part of their charm, then the least you can do with an interactive medium is make that failure engaging, insightful, or meditative. I seldom had that experience with Beton Brutal, so I can't, in good conscience, pretend that my lack of proficiency has much to do with it.