Levelhead (Switch) Review

ROBOT MAIL CARRIERS IN SPACE

Having just gotten back into platforming games recently, we were given the opportunity to play one that can go on forever in a similar fashion to Super Mario Maker. As a team, we got to sit down with this silly robot game called Levelhead. Playing it, I instantly got transported back to titles like Spelunky or Super Mario Maker from the nostalgic feeling of moving around the area and using items and abilities to proceed.

Levelhead follows a cute plot from a very questionable company using robotic delivery persons (GR-18) in the universe. The game depicts some pretty funny shaping of the world along with a wildly irresponsible company at the core of it.

THE LONG ROAD

The game starts off with a few levels of “Training” that you must complete and there are many more training levels afterward as well. While we cracked through more than are required, you absolutely run into some harder challenges as you keep going. These levels offer some pretty clear things to do in order to overcome them. For example, a little yellow arrow indicating something vital or a circular pulse around your package you have been sent there to pick up. With 93 levels to get through, players absolutely get smacked with some hard walls that involve overcoming some tricky obstacles in by developing various platforming techniques. For those who want the long and short of them, there is a pretty fantastic running document with GIFs of what the community can do so far.

A VIBRANT PALETTE

Level Head has this really vibrant and easily recognizable cartoon palette. The way it plays into things through the whole experience is something that players will assuredly grow to love. Although, that love may come with some face palming as the secrets hidden within levels are revealed in the forms of hidden rooms. All the colors pop off of one another and only hold back on some in order to hide more of those secret areas. On top of this, your GR-18 can get different outfits with different abilities within each level. These also have some really fun color schemes to them and absolutely let you know what you can and cannot do between the outfits.

Outside of the colors, there is a lot of little sounds. Each pickup, hit, footfall, and more all give you a different sound to go off of so you can use your auditory senses to help guide what you are doing with more precision. Personally, I was feeling like the sound gets a little muddy once there are several things going on at once.

INFINITE SPACE

One of the things that have made Levelhead so unique is that it has this near-infinite replayability. This means that you will have a different experience each time you play if you so choose. You can also revisit some old favorites as long as the creators of said level keep them alive as well! This is achieved from players uploading levels online in a similar way to that of Super Mario Maker. It’s easy to use and you can jump straight into playing extremely quickly. Leave your creators a rating to help them know if they need to work on their creation, make more, or start over. Be nice though. No one likes someone being rude.

So what about the creation side really gets people going? It is super easy to use. Reviewing this from the Switch really made it feel like it was designed for this handheld. While I personally feel that level creation would be much easier to do on a PC version of any game, Levelhead makes it simple enough to make wickedly challenging levels just on the Joy-Cons.

From in-game, you can select the tower which will let you see the highest rated levels of the day or week so you can go get a feel what most people are after currently. Once you get a good feel for that, you can try new things or as a creator, you can even get right to designing your own levels.

After playing for several hours with the team and on my own I have to say that this game will be a lot of fun to keep coming back to whenever I just wanna scratch that itch of platforming casually. For some though, I believe making some crazy Kaizo levels will be a strong pastime. So without further ado, let’s get into some scores.

SCORES

GAMEPLAY - 8/10

VISUALS - 8/10

SOUND - 7/10

CONTROLS - 8/10

REPLAY VALUE - 10/10

OVERALL - 8.2/10

Levelhead is available on Steam, the Epic Store, Xbox One, PS4, Nintendo Switch, Google Play, and iOS. Learn more about the crossplay component in our news piece on Levelhead. For even more information, check out the official Butterscotch Shenanigans website. A digital copy for Switch, Steam, and iOS was provided for the purpose of review.

If you like platformers be sure to check out our preview of the upcoming Spirit Farer, or our review of the recent surprise hit Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair.