Nightmare Boy

Nightmare Boy throws a whole heap of platform-adventure ideas at the wall, but only a few of them manage to stick. It's a Metroidvania with a distinctive style all of its own, but there are some glaring issues with its narrative, controls, pacing and performance. If you're after something completely different in the platformer category and have a high frustration threshold, however, there's a certain amount of quirky fun to be had here.

Nightmare Boy is a fun experience for a few hours, and a lot of the glaring design choices around the gameplay can be overlooked or ignored for the most part. While Billy may feel heavy to control, he does almost always make it to the platforms, while the fighting systems are quite basic, but it allows for the focus to be on the exploration side of things instead. In terms of the aesthetic of the various areas as well, The Vanir Project has done a terrific job in stylising the different sections and making every area feel fresh and new, without getting bogged down with repetitive enemies. While the platforming-based abilities work well, the combat-based abilities leave a lot to be desired, as they lack any flexibility within the combat arena, and even when those abilities are fired off, they do little damage to be worth its while compared to the base attacks. While this can be replayed, there's very little incentive to do so.

In conclusion, the game is good but it can be improved, it gives the impression of being a bit on fire and that it lacks many aspects (especially the control), however, for those who love the graphic aspect of it and the art Go ahead, it's your game!

In the end Nightmare Boy offers up something thoroughly different from a visual standpoint and can be quite challenging, just not always for the right reasons. If you give it some time it does pick up momentum and you can get into a groove but when you hit the spots where you're not sure where you're going, things understandably drag quite a bit. Probably only recommended for the most die-hard Metroidvania fans who have blown through what's already available on the system, show patience with Nightmare Boy and some fun can be had with it.

Overall, Nightmare Boy is a lot of fun, despite it’s many flaws. It’s not the best Metroidvania on Switch in terms of gameplay by a long shot, but the sense of style it embodies is enough to carry it, and the overall experience does improve the more you play.

In the end Nightmare Boy offers up something thoroughly different from a visual standpoint and it can be quite challenging, just not always for the right reasons either. If you give it some time it does pick up momentum and you can get into a groove but when you hit the spots where you’re not sure where you’re going things understandably drag quite a bit. Probably only recommended for the most die-hard Metroidvania fans who have blown through what’s already available on the system, show patience with Nightmare Boy and some fun can be had with it.

Nightmare Boy pays homage to classic 16 bit platform games. It´s colorful, well animated and fun to play, although you can finish the game in less than four hours.

Looks like the next S2S title for PSVG to take a look at is The Vanir’s Project’s latest work, Nightmare Boy. As per the usual, Nightmare Boy has been out for a while on the PC platform, giving the developers a healthy chance to fix bugs and smoothly port over to the Nintendo console. Also per the usual, it’s one of those games I never heard of thanks to Valve’s horrifying game representation system and with that frame of mind, I can assume that being a single player platformer, the game is at risk of not being well known by the masses. I am here to fix that, for better or worse. Check it out!

Without being the perfect Metroidvania, Nightmare Boy is still a good affordable title, with a fun story and simple gameplay mechanics to appeal to the genre newcomers.

PSN Price (PlayStation 4): $12.99