Horace

When Horace is good, it's a touching, thrilling experience. When it's bad, it's overly frustrating and too reliant on the dreaded pop culture references.

Ultimately, Horace’s heartwarming narrative pushes you through the hardcore gameplay, and the high-quality aesthetic and music burn themselves into your brain. Horace may be an unforgiving platformer, but it’s well worth the challenge. The game is out now on Steam.

The amount of games released on a daily basis on Steam means that I can barely keep track of the new titles available on the storefront. Be it good games, or more often than not, terrible ones. There’s always that one little and very obscure indie gem that shows up from out of nowhere and leaves you with your jaw on the floor after playing it, though. Last year, we had CrossCode. This year, the biggest contender for best game I had never heard of prior to playing it has to be Horace.

Perfectly blending its humorous, touching story with challenging but accessible gameplay, Horace is easily one of the best puzzle/platformers available for the Nintendo Switch. You can certainly read this review, but heading straight to the eShop and buying it now will save you some time.Read More

Horace is one of the most pleasant gaming surprises in years. I'm clearly a key part of its target demographic, having lived through the 1980s and early 90s that so heavily influenced it, but my enjoyment and engagement went past such an identification. I was completely absorbed throughout, and fully intend to return to collect the remaining pieces of junk. It may not be as immediately impressive as the latest AAA blockbuster, but Horace is essential for fans of retro games or hard platformers and a real contender for Indie Game of the Year.

Horace's story by itself makes it an easy recommendation, but it doesn't hurt that the game is also a fun, challenging 2D platformer with plenty of gameplay variety to ensure that players are almost always doing something new. The backtracking and pacing issues are something to keep in mind, but they are easily overlooked when the rest of the game is this good. Simply put, Horace is an absolute must-play for platforming fans.