I finally stumbled across another free game that’s worth playing:

• Super Beast Hunt
  

  12 hours playtime

  no achievements

Platformer. Standard left/right movement and jump, X does a short-range punch, B shoots a long-range projectile (costs ammo but quickly refills over a few seconds), and R does a dash move that lets you go through hazards. Movement does have a bit of momentum, but besides that, controls are responsive and intuitive (though you might get shoot and dash mixed up at first). You also get a couple extra mechanics as you progress, like pushing down to do a ground-pound. My only issue here is that, sometimes, a mechanic doesn’t get used much for a while, so you forget about it when it needs to be used again, such as running (hold R) or how you can still bounce on rocks by punching them or dashing into them instead of only being able to do a ground-pound on top of them to bounce.

Level design is also really good. 20 levels may not seem like much, but they’re pretty meaty while still having frequent checkpoints so you don’t have to redo too much after dying. Plus, there are several optional levels, including Challenge levels that have redesigned rooms from each world to make them harder. You unlock these levels by collecting coins or hitting a special switch in the main levels, but you don’t have to worry about them being hidden too well; even before I bought the Coin Radar, I always managed to find every coin and switch on my first run through (except the first coin in level 3-1, whose path I spotted on my second go–again, without the radar). Plus, it’s always obvious which split-path will lead to the coin/switch due to said path being blatantly more difficult (such as a flat path vs. a trail of apples you need to melee-attack-bounce across).

The only issue here is that the game isn’t always good at conveying information to the player. Some walls you can wall-jump on whereas some you can’t, but the distinction isn’t always clear, especially in world 3 (which is monochrome). I kept thinking I needed to use a balloon to get the second coin in level 3-2, but it would always pop at the on/off electric barrier, even when the barrier was off. It took a couple deaths before I noticed the wall suddenly becomes wall-jump-able at that point, meaning I didn’t need the balloon at all. Plus, the Wild House (world 3 bonus level) has a section where you can “only dash”, except the second room of that section is extremely difficult to get through using only the dash move. Turns out, you’re also allowed bounce on objects with your melee attack while in midair (but not while standing on the ground; that mechanic was disabled like the others).

One last thing: sometimes, the difficulty goes overboard, but even here, you have a health bar that you can upgrade with in-game currency, so a few mistakes or cheap hits won’t always punish you (and there’s an Assist Mode, but I never used it; never had to).

Still, the game is pretty good overall–especially since it’s free–so I highly recommend it.