You Have to Win the Game

Platforming in its purest form. You jump, and you run. What more do you need?

With YHTWTG, it feels like Pirate Hearts took every single element a game could have, and carefully analysed whether it was absolutely necessary for the game to be fun. Everything else was mercilessly cut out - complex animations, a storyline, a soundtrack, complex graphics, all of that just got tossed out entirely. The resulting game is as barebones as it gets (it's a four button platformer with 8bit graphics), but entirely laser-focused on being one cohesive gameplay experience without anything that could potentially distract you. YHTWTG is one of the few games that understands minimalism - it's not just Helvetica with way too much whitespace. It's a philosophy.

The controls are the fluidest, tightest controls I've ever experienced in any video game ever. To put it in the words of Todd Howard - it just works. Everything is responsive, everything is predictable, and whenever you play the game, you know that you are the one responsible for what happens.
Plenty of other games try to do the same thing, but eventually relent and add one or two frames of delay to account for a cool animation. This does not happen here. The game does what you want it to do, and the near perfect hitboxes complete that.

Aesthetically, YHTWTGH does what it's supposed to do. Play it on the two-color mode, and disable the goofy CRT simulation. What you get is a novel interpretation of the classic fantasy theme, one that simultaneously retreads old themes and approaches them from a different angle. The closest equivalent would be Castlevania, but without the kitsch.

The game has no plot, but still manages to create an intriguing atmosphere nonetheless. Giving every single screen an unique title was a genius move - it essentially does the Dark Souls thing where you have some scraps of a story and have to figure out the rest yourself, but it doesn't waste any time dwelling on it. It's there, in the background, where it belongs.

The only bad part I know of is the ending, but that's honestly a non-issue - it's virtually meaningless, and it's not even included in the "extra spicy" version (which is the meat of the game).

Hard platformer set in a metroidvania world design. Considering there are no weapons, it does manage to offer a good sense of progression throughout the 1 hour it takes to beat.

Some of the platforming section are really hard, but its designed well enough that the hardest sections are left for optional content. Though it is really hard and sometimes frustrating, i did enjoy making my way through it.

Visually it feels very much like a 80's game, and it sounds that way as well.

A great free game overal.