Replay:VHS is not Dead is a Puzzle Platformer from a Student team at the Institute of Internet and Multimedia and is supported by Neko Entertainment. Replay brings a number of very interesting ideas to the table with its time-based gameplay and Movie-based level themes but I still felt like there was something missing…

The graphic style favours a pixel art style which is nice to see but I feel is overdone in games nowadays and I quickly became bored of it, that’s not to say however that the graphics are bad. The environments that each of the levels are based in are stunning, each looking unique and finely crafted. Each of the character models looks very nice also each having their own unique look and feel even though all of the characters play the same they each felt different. The animations on the characters are simple but clean and well done. The graphics are one of this game’s nicest parts however I just wished they had opted for a more stylised graphics style instead of the usual pixel-based style.

Replay opts for a chip-tune like sound design which is very well done but (much like the graphics) is overdone and I again became bored of it very quickly. The Music in the game is catchy and relates to the themes of the levels however it became increasingly more annoying when trying to complete some of the harder puzzles. The characters sounds however are cheerful and reminiscent of older games on the SNES and MegaDrive. The sounds are simple but effective at giving jumps and landings a nice amount of impact but still providing an arcade-like float to them.

The gameplay is where my Love-Hate relationship with this game starts. To start, I do not like Puzzle games very much and Replay: VHS is not Dead tries very hard to be unique and interesting which it achieves greatly apart from a few minor things that really grinded on me. The main feature of the game is that you can rewind the level and use other characters to achieve your goal. For Example, on one of the levels I had to climb a tower with a character on each side. The level required me to activate a switch to allow one character to get to the top, once I had done this I had to rewind and redo the same sequence but as the other character which made for a nice moment where thought “Well Done!” and then realised that I had done all of the work myself! This feature is great for creating complex and mind-bending puzzles which starts with just two characters but quickly progresses to having 3,4 and even 5 characters (which really tests your patience with yourself) however, rewinding takes you right to the start of the level again and one small error means you start each level from the beginning. Each level also provided me with a tooltip on different features of the game which I welcomed each time but the tooltip would take up a good portion of the screen which made it hard to truly figure out a level as you could not see some of it until you started playing.

This is the first game I’ve played where I got angry at my co-op partner and realised that it was just me being angry with myself…

This problem can be fixed quickly by simply starting the level however each time you restart the tooltip reappears. All negatives aside however, I did like the mechanic of using multiple characters to navigate the level and then rewinding time to use other characters and the humor that each of these characters brings is great. When you make an error you can only blame yourself (which I found myself doing a lot) as you are the one who controls any of the characters. This is the first game I’ve played where I got angry at my co-op partner and realised that it was just me being angry with myself…

Replay:VHS is not Dead comes in at £7.99 on the Xbox Store which is a fair price. With around 70 Levels and multiple themes to play in based on different movies it will appeal to many audiences, especially those who enjoy crazy puzzles and solid platforming.