I'll fully admit BattleBlock Theater isn't the most...sophisticated of 2D platformers, in more ways than one. A lot of my fondness for it is due to childhood nostalgia. Even so, it holds up incredibly well in 2024.

The aesthetics are very charming, capturing that Newgrounds artstyle very well while also sporting some wonderful details. The music absolutely slaps too, with the time trial and final level themes being personal favorites of mine. And the narrator is actually pretty funny! A large part of it is due to the performance, but there's some really good dialogue for him, the "pathological liar" bit being one of my favorites.

The gameplay is also fantastic. Your character is very responsive, easy to understand, and even has some nuance to their movement, like how you can double jump in midair with good timing or use the different weapons to sequence-break. The level design, while pretty simplistic, does a very good job consistently introducing new gimmicks and switching things up in a way that feels both fresh and fun. And that's not even mentioning the co-op, versus, and level editor modes, which add tons of really fun content.

And I really love the horses in this game. They're just these strange, cubic creatures and they're beautiful.