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Emuurom is a new pixel art Metroidvania title from developer borbware and publisher Coyote Time Publishing. It’s out now on Steam, priced at $11.24. The game is one that puzzle platformer fans will fall in love with instantly. Each single-screen section is filled with lots to do, secrets to discover, puzzles to solve, and some precision platforming thrown in for good measure. Emuurom has everything that a great puzzle platformer needs, and it’s all wrapped up in a stylish 8-bit presentation that makes it feel like a late NES title.
The game begins when you lose your scanning tool and are dropped into a world filled with plants, animals, and other natural elements, such as clouds and stones. Right from the off, you’re faced with a puzzle. It took us a moment to work out how to get out of the first screen, and we suddenly realized that bouncing high requires an initial long drop to build momentum. Yes, Emuurom is a true brain teaser that requires lateral thinking and lots of experimentation, as well as some blind luck at times.
The world is broken down into different areas, each with new animals and plants to scan. The purpose of scanning everything you can is to build up information that will help you move on to the next area. The depth of Emuurom is almost unfathomable at times, and so often we realized we needed to combine some precision platforming with scanning things at the right time, as well as putting it all together with great timing. To say Emuurom will challenge you is a huge understatement; this is a tough game to progress in at times.
Add to this the boss-type screens that require a string of maneuvers to finish, and you’ll start to get the idea that this isn’t another pixel art nostalgia romp; this is a brutally difficult game that takes patience, practice, and brain power. The beauty of this game is how limited your hero is in powers and is reliant on using all the animals and objects to get around. There were times in our playthrough when we felt almost helpless and just had to keep experimenting with the world around us to find a way forward. The design is quite ingenious.
The graphics and sounds in Emuurom are quintessentially NES-like in nature, and although everything is quite minimalistic, the world is beautiful and has an array of colors throughout, especially when using the scanner. The music is what you would expect from a game of this nature, the bleeps and bloops of a chiptune soundtrack, amalgamated with the usual crashes and blast effects from 80s gaming. There were a few times when we struggled to see exactly what we could and couldn’t jump or stand on, but this wasn’t anything that spoiled the game.
Overall, this is a brilliantly designed Metroidvania title that has a lot of depth and will take many hours to finish completely. This isn’t one we would recommend for those who enjoy lots of action in a Metroidvania and it is more suitable for those who enjoy the exploration side of the genre. We would definitely suggest that any gamer who enjoys relentless puzzles and having to scratch their brain continuously will fall in love with this one right away. Emuurom is a brilliant game that ticks a lot of boxes while providing a robust challenge at every turn.
