I already dug the demo for Judero, a new action adventure game from developer duo Talah Kaya and Jack King-Spooner, but the full game is managing to surpass my expectations: Judero is weird, and it is well-worth your time.
The art style is the immediate hook, making use of modified action figures and handcrafted clay models digitized into sprites, a distinctly '90s sort of rendering reminiscent of Doom or Fallout 1's Talking Heads. The cutscenes, meanwhile, are full-on stop motion animation, with Spooner's unsettling clay sculptures reminding me of Ray Harryhausen or Phil Tippett's work.
I'm maybe two thirds of the way through Judero, and my favorite thing has to be how it keeps surprising me. Stepping into a house in one of the game's villages changes the art style to psychedelic watercolors, while the residents offer unnerving, anachronistic ruminations on life, love, and living in a dying world. Opening a portal early on in the game sent me to a classic Sonic-style bonus stage, while another, identical gate later on sent me to a formless void with a single coin to tide me over during the minute-long "bonus."
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Judero himself is some kind of warrior-druid straight from the mists of primeval Caledonia, but in addition to faeries, lizardmen, and "haggis" (porcine worm creatures), he also has to contend with early modern Englishmen, roly poly gents in garish renaissance hose who shout "Carlisle!" over and over as if they were Cumbrian Pokémon.
While I'm not as in love with the action, it's a suitable delivery method for what I am here for, an effective bread for the more savory atmosphere and exploration. I haven't even gotten to the music, a blend of guitar-forward folk and cheeky funk that calls to mind a lost era of '70s British psychedelia. Stay tuned for our full review of Judero, but take this story as an early tip-off that it's well worth the $18 ($16 on sale until September 23).
