Now, wanting to capitalize on the launch of the new consoles, the developers, Drinkbox, have ported it to pretty much every other gaming platform as well- the hilariously titled Guacamelee! Super Turbo Championship Edition has come to the PS4, Xbox One, and the Wii U, and in the process, they’ve gone back to the drawing board and made this new edition a bit, well, more of everything it was that made the original game so good. There’s enough new stuff here to warrant a playthrough even if you have already seen all that Guacamelee had to offer before this. If you haven’t had a chance to play the game yet, well, this new edition is the best place for you to jump in.

"Fundamentally, Guacamelee! Super Turbo Championship Edition remains the same game that we fell in love with last year. So everything that we enjoyed about the older game is back here in full force, and it's as good as ever."

Fundamentally, Guacamelee! Super Turbo Championship Edition remains the same game that we fell in love with last year. So everything that we enjoyed about the older game- the the great soundtrack, the witty dialog, replete with references to Nintendo classics such as Metroid and The Legend of Zelda, and the tight if slightly forgiving platforming- is back here, and in full force, and it’s as good as ever. If you want to learn more about exactly what kind of game Guacamelee is, I direct you to my review for the Gold Edition on Steam (linked above), or to GamingBolt’s review for the original release on the Vita and PS3 (also linked above). Both will tell you a whole lot about the game Guacamelee! is, and will save me the trouble retreading old ground again. For the purposes of this review, suffice it to say that the game is a Metroidvania, an excellent Metroidvania, with some dashes of Zelda thrown in.

What I will focus on here are the differences from the original game. Like the Gold Edition on Steam, Super Turbo Championship Edition comes with all of the DLC that the original game had included in the package right off the bat. That right there provides some great value and some neat new platforming fun, but this edition also includes the El Infierno DLC pack, that was made available for the original game in the form of post launch paid content. El Infierno adds a series of challenge rooms that present the player with various platforming challenges to overcome, and is a substantial dose of additional content to the base package here.

Guacamelee doesn’t stop there, either. It adds some all new areas and levels within the core game campaign itself, which are at least as high quality as the original content, if not even better. The new areas see you take on a whole host of platforming challenges and new enemies, which weren’t actually available in the original game, as well as a new boss, who is probably the hardest boss in the entire game so far (and, in some ingenious and witty retconning, actually manages to work his way into the main overall story as well).

But that’s still not all Guacamelee adds to the overall package. it also includes several smaller, quality of life enhancements, such as health bars over enemies (so you know how close you are to taking them out), and an all new Intenso mode, which is basically a mode that grants you fill invincibility for a while. To go ‘Intenso’ you need to fill out a bar- once filled, you essentially go nuts, and are able to dispatch enemies with ease. The Intenso bar can be upgraded by finding secret collectibles hidden all over the world, and while Intenso mode makes the game’s easy combat even easier, it also addresses a key issue that we felt the original game had- the combat eventually devolved into repetitive button mashing, things became rote, and the fighting tended to drag the rest of the admittedly excellent game down a bit. Here, thanks to the Intenso mode adding some variation and spice to the combat (and also a new risk/reward dynamic- do you want to go out of your way to fill up the bar, but risk danger along the way?), that problem is no longer a consideration.

"Guacamelee! is a fun, high quality, surreal romp, and it showcases some of the best flexibility that its genre has to offer."

An unexpected downside of this all, however, tends to be sped up combat. People familiar with the original game will probably recognize why this is an issue, but to specify- Guacamelee! is a short game. Combat tended to drag things out, yes, but it also slowed things down. Nonetheless, this was an artificial lengthening of the game, it amounted to padding of the worst kind, so it’s kind of nice that that issue’s been addressed to an extent. That, in conjunction with the fact that there are now so many extra additions that all add to the meat of the package, do address one of the other major flaws that both the releases of this game last year had- they fix the issue of this game’s longevity and length. You will now get even more bang for your buck with Guacamelee! than you previously did.

Ultimately, this is a very heavily recommended purchase. Guacamelee! is a fun, high quality, surreal romp, and it showcases some of the best flexibility that its genre has to offer. If you haven’t yet played the game already, this new release is the best place to jump in. If you have either a PS4, Xbox One, or Wii U, and are looking for a high quality game to play, look no further than Guacamelee! If you already played through the original release, Super Championship Turbo Edition is still highly recommended, simply because it enhances the original’s experience so much.

This game was reviewed on PlayStation 4.

Now, after just a few months of PlayStation exclusivity, the colorful worlds of Guacamelee are coming to PC via a Steam release; the Steam version, entitled the ‘Gold Edition,’ includes the full original game, as great as it ever was, in addition to some neat new bonuses, such as full support for the Steam workshop, the inclusion of all the DLC with the game, and support for other Steam specific features such as trading cards.

In addition, it also allows you to fully remap the keyboard controls of the game to your liking, so that the core gameplay is not compromised. In other words, DrinkBox Studios took a package that was already pretty hard to resist, and then they made it even more tempting.

For those who never got to play the original game, Guacamelee! has a simple enough premise- you’re Juan Aquacave, a farmer in Mexico. When your love interest, the daughter of the President, is kidnapped, a series of events ensue that ultimately leave you equipped with the luchadore, which allows you to kick all sorts of butt. The entire ‘rescue the kidnapped princess’ motif for a video game is three decades too tired at this point, even as an homage, but it works, because after setting the story up, it fades into the background to accommodate the true point of the game, which is the gameplay proper.

"The gameplay itself is a modern recreation of classic franchises like Metroid and The Legend of Zelda, but amazingly enough, while it channels the old classics incredibly well, it also maintains its own identity."

The gameplay itself is a modern recreation of classic franchises like Metroid and The Legend of Zelda, but amazingly enough, while it channels the old classics incredibly well, it also maintains its own identity. A large part of this has to do with the game’s inimitable charm, and its wonderful art style, which adds so much character and soul to the game. The art style can only be described as eye popping, and by itself is almost reason enough to play the game.

It’s complemented by some incredibly witty dialog, replete with references to video game pop culture, along with a great, catchy soundtrack. All of this is also aided by the game’s brisk, lightning fast 60FPS frame rate, that ensures nothing interferes with your enjoyment of all the action on screen, and how it is presented. It ensures you enjoy the gameplay without any issues.

And yes, the gameplay is wonderfully enjoyable- like the dialog of the game, it evokes The Legend of Zelda and Metroid. It has you traversing various parts of the game world from a central hub, battling it out with various enemies, and getting upgrades from a goat farmer and his ‘Choozo statues’ (a cookie if you recognize that reference).

"The actual central platforming is tight and a joy to play through, although it remains surprisingly forgiving. "

The actual central platforming is tight and a joy to play through, although it remains surprisingly forgiving. It is made better than ever now, thanks to the full flexibility that Guacamelee! Gold Edition’s fully re-mappable keyboard controls afford you with.

Of course, since the actual core game remains the same, the problems with it are also the same, just as its core strengths remain the same- it still, for example, often gets a little repetitive, as you traverse the same regions and dispatch the same enemies over and over again. The co-op play here remains as under utilized and disappointingly half baked as it was in the vanilla, PlayStation edition of the game.

One issue of the original game, that being its length, has been addressed with Gold Edition, thanks to its inclusion of the ‘Devil’s Challenge’ DLC. It’s still a short game, overall, but then, it’s not as short as it was before, and more importantly, shortness is an overall shortcoming of the genre, as opposed to the game itself.

Ultimately, Guacamelee! is as recommended now as it was then, probably more because all the additions to the PC version add to the core package so much. It is a delightful, charming Metroidvania, that is recommended to anyone who wants to play a challenging and yet oddly relaxing game, a game that is more about the mechanics than context, and yet still doesn’t eschew production values. It’s a great game, a seminal example of an indie game done right, of an homage done right, of design over context, substance over style.

This game was reviewed on PC.