Have you ever played a game and been blown away by how good it turns out to be? This describes my experience with KLAUS from La Cosa Entertainment. A fun, engaging puzzle platformer that just nails its genre. Before I started playing this game I thought, here we go again yet another platformer pumping out the same old stuff in over populated segment of the gaming market…..but no!
This game gets it and delivers where other, less refined games fail! KLAUS has exceptionally simple, but incredibly beautiful art design, awesome audio and thoroughly engaging gameplay. The game is fun and you will enjoy playing through it.
It’s mostly the complete package that excels in being great at everything it sets out to do and has a definite air of quality about it. It’s clear to see that this young development studio poured a great deal of love into this title.
To summarize the story, you play an office worker who awakens in a basement with no idea where or who you are. Curiously, you also discover that your arm has been marked with the word KLAUS, and immediately embark on a journey to survive a number of increasingly challenging scenarios. The live action trailer for the game encapsulates all of this brilliantly.
Mechanically speaking, this game is easy to grasp but increasingly difficult to master – you will die in this game, although in most scenario’s you quickly learn from your previous mistakes.
As you progress throughout KLAUS you are progressively challenged with more complicated puzzles to overcome. Puzzles that are extremely well designed and logically planned out. Whilst the controls fell a little off to begin with, they are for the most part intuitive, simple and become more comfortable with time. KLAUS is by no means a perfect game and does have a number of opportunities for development perhaps in a future sequel. It does start off very easy and almost babies you through the first few levels. The use of the PlayStation 4’s touchpad and speaker felt somewhat unnecessary and did disrupt from the standard flow of general gameplay. Having said that, I appreciated the effort to integrate their use into the game.
Overall though, they have done an exceptional job. The game is fun, challenging and will keep you motivated to play through just one more puzzle again and again. Unlike a lot of puzzle platformers, KLAUS delivers where many other games do not. It knows exactly what it wants to be and does it brilliantly. KLAUS is well made and offers heaps of puzzle variety whilst generally getting the balance right between fun and difficulty level. If you are in the market for a fun puzzle platformer then KLAUS is your game.
