Dustforce

Dustforce! You're so hard!

(What is Dustforce?)

Dustforce is a PC indie platformer in which you play as a ninja janitor on a mission to dust the world, one level at a time. The controls are a bit many, but it's manageable if you put in the practice. The game has soothing techno music.

Why's it too hard (for Paul)?

To proceed to another level, you need to get an "S/S" rating in some other level. The "SS"-soundingness of the challenge is appropriate. Unlike Super Meat Boy, which gives you the option of doing its super hard challenges, Dustforce requires it, like a nazi (an indie nazi). With its many buttons you need to master, and its increasingly spike and monster-filled maps, it ends up feeling like a frustrating grind much of the time (especially since the levels can be a couple minutes long). It never feels impossible, due to the happy music and the many replays you can watch of the best players, but it does feel hard enough that it makes me rethink my life whenever I play it. So I stopped and will not review it.

My favorite things about Dustforce are its original concept and this song: http://lifeformed.bandcamp.com/album/fastfall