Based on a cult comic, ScaryGirl is a promotional tie in. Despite the title of this beautiful (if you like Tim Burton) game, ScaryGirl isn’t actually scary. She has an eye patch, a hook for a hand, and skull earrings and her adoptive father is an octopus. ScaryGirl has everything you would expect out of an old school 2D platformer. It adopts the old school style of asking you to travel left to right across the screen, besting enemies, and picking up health as you continue through the game.
ScaryGirl is burdened with dreams when her adoptive father wakes her up to tell her that the Tree of Life is slowly dieing by losing leaves. ScaryGirl gets up and gets ready to best the eerie underwater world to save the Tree of Life. In the beginning of the game a mystical rabbit teaches Scarygirl her fighting moves. After this, ScaryGirl is ready to take on the world. As I said before, ScaryGirl has a hook for a hand which she uses to bash enemies, hook them and pull them to her, or throw the grappled enemy into other enemies on the screen. This makes combat relatively simple. Grab some glittering gems that hover around in the game and upgrade ScaryGirl in many ways. You can upgrade her hook to turn it into a feather. You can get new combat moves which will make her adventure easier. One move is calling forth quite a few tentacles that toss enemies into the air where you can then grapple them and slam them into the ground. Most of the game though will have ScaryGirl besting enemies that crawl, fly, slither, or ooze in your way.
As ScaryGirl bests these foes that rush at her, she fills up a rage type meter. When the meter fills up and you decide to unleash the scariness of ScaryGirl that rests underneath her “good girl” exterior, ScaryGirl is a freaking beast! This mode turns her into a fearsome monster type that gobbles up bad guys. She makes ‘nom nom’ noises while gobbling up these baddies. Simply put, it’s awesome!
The only flaw I had with the combat is that it doesn’t flow as well as I would like it to. It gets a little difficult when there are many enemies flying and crawling to you but from every angle imaginable. Makes it a little hard to get that arm to swing and grapple enemies. The difficulty does spike up steeply in the middle of the game and with the lack of precision and the amount of enemies coming at ScaryGirl, she tends to get overwhelmed a lot.
During this quest, ScaryGirl encounters densely tangled forests, sewage-encrusted mechanized crusher pits, jagged ice-covered mountaintops, and even a multi-story dive bar. The environments are weird, to say the least. Everything is very Tim Burton-esque. Even the enemies are similar to the environments. One enemy is a squid like creature that totes a purse around.
If you are wanting to play with a friend then by all means, have at it! Remember the mystical rabbit from the beginning of the game? Yea, he’s your co-op buddy! He’s quicker and has different moves.
Final Verdict- If you enjoy old school platformers with a less than perfect story then ScaryGirl is for you. Some good character models and environments. Old school combat! If you’re looking for a game to get you through this long weekend that is coming up then this game is for you!
