Super Laura Up – Video Review (KyotoCrank)

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• DEVELOPER: zelun_
• PUBLISHER: zelun_
• PLATFORMS: PC
• GENRE: Platformer
• RELEASE DATE: January 6, 2024
• INITIAL PRICE: €2.99
• REVIEWED VERSION: PC

Super Laura Up is a rage-inducing game; it’s a precision platformer inspired by retro platformers like Super Mario and is similar to other precision platformers of recent years such as Jump King and Getting Over It With Bennett Foddy.

Visuals

This game is illustrated with 2D graphics, with some areas being significantly more detailed than others, and some very interesting characters. Since they are in different styles, I wonder if the developer used some pre-made assets. I also noticed some images that are, I assume, from the development team’s other games, perhaps as a kind of Easter egg.

I haven’t played those reference games, but I noticed it because I became curious and dug a little deeper to see what other games the developers have made. Something else I really liked is how the background changes the higher you go, so you can see and feel a palpable difference besides the new platform sections.

Music and Sound Design

There aren’t too many sound effects in the game; the only one you can really find is when you bounce off circular saws. The music is quite decent, some energetic electronic 8-bit music. After a while, I felt the need for the sound of rain or something similar to calm me down; the combination of frustration with the high-energy music was too much if I played for too long.

Gameplay Mechanics

The gameplay is simple. If you play alone, your only option is jumping. The obstacles along the path are diverse; you can encounter something new almost all the way up or forward across the screen. If you play with friends, at certain spots you get question blocks that give you power-ups. Things like creating platforms, teleporting a player, shooting projectiles, and pushing nearby players.

A major part of the challenge involves platforming on oddly shaped objects from which you can slide; you must jump immediately off them to avoid slipping and falling. Then there are special obstacles. First, I encountered circular saws and wasn’t sure what to do—I thought they’d send you right back to the start, but it turns out you bounce off them to progress further.

I’m sure the developer was laughing while confusing players like me who were wondering how they were supposed to advance. Then there are the bouncy, star-like things that launch you far and fast, but it’s difficult to react and precisely platform from one to the next.

All of this together makes the game seriously challenging to beat; I don’t even want to know how many times I fell. Luckily, I’m not the type of person who gets easily annoyed. To be honest, I didn’t beat this game until I got help from a friend. We used the teleport power-up to get to each other, like a kind of checkpoint system.

Conclusions

To conclude, this is a pretty decent game. The €3 price tag is definitely fair. The platforming was tough, but everything was doable. The entire game appears to be properly tested, meaning the challenges weren’t intentionally set up to be impossible to complete. Precision platformers aren’t usually my type of game, but I enjoyed this one during my brief time playing it.