While getting a broader perspective on Super Hexagon, I read that the developer (Terry Cavanagh) also made VVVVVV (V6). V6 has been waiting to be played since the third Humble Bundle so I went ahead and fired it up. I wasn’t expecting to finish it, nor was I expecting to be sinking in a long play session just to finish it (sound familiar? it’s like deja vu with A Dark Room).

V6 started out on rocky ground with me, mainly because I really didn’t know what to expect. I’ve seen the title thrown around, but I never looked into it so the retro graphics and bold color scheme (an indication, perhaps, of what Super Hexagon would later adopt) were a little bit of a surprise. However, once I moved past the initial screens, I found myself in the spirit of exploration and fired up the game multiple times before eventually finishing it in one big sprint. My total play time was just over 2 hours to finish.

The story behind V6 is you are part of a crew of 6, traveling in a spaceship when suddenly you run into some interference and everyone gets teleported to various locations in a strange dimension. The goal is to reunite the crew back on the spaceship, using teleporters scattered throughout this dimension. Part of the challenge is mastering the inversion of gravity (as you can’t jump) to get past spikes and creatures that sometimes represent words. Another part of the challenge is leading your crew members, who don’t share the same inversion of gravity skill you do, to said teleporters. The platforming aspect is quite fun and challenging, but thankfully there are respawn points scattered around in strategic places so it’s not terribly frustrating to get past a challenge.

The real rocky part for me was the first couple of times I attempted to play, I never got quite far enough to reach the screen that said hitting the Enter key would bring up the game’s menu. As I kept respawning at certain points, I thought those were autosaves but I was wrong. Normally, the Esc key would bring up the entire menu, but in V6, it was just a confirmation of exiting the game. The actual game menu provides a minimap of the dimension you are to traverse as well as a quicksave option which quickly became my friend. There are autosave points at teleporters as well, but it is a few challenges on before you actually reach your first teleporter.

The game world is quite interesting in that it wraps around the edges, so going off the left side of the minimap puts you on the right side of the minimap and the same with the top and bottom. It certainly gives the impression of an infinite loop. Perhaps this is what makes the exploration part of the game more fun? The map itself is divided into discrete rectangles, so instead of the continuous scrolling of modern day platformers, going off the edge of the actual screen loads up a new “submap” (note: there is a set of submaps that do not follow this rule completely, but this is the behavior in the general case). A lot of the map is actually just empty space for you to practice your inversion of gravity traversing.

Submaps that are actual platforming challenges have names. These are sometimes amusing, such as the sequence “V”, “VV”, “VVV”, … while flying upwards through a sequence of submaps no doubt is a play on the title of the game. Sometimes there are hints, like “In a Single Bound” which helps you get over a semi-difficult challenge (hint, just hold down the move button). The challenges are grouped into a theme which share a certain color whereas non-challenge adjacent submaps will vary in coloration. This can be confusing at times, but you get accustomed to it. The challenges also have various themes, such as an infinite looping submap where going off the left edge will put you on the right side of the submap or “strings” that invert your gravity, same as if you had pressed the jump button. These themes added cohesiveness to the challenges within the submaps that shared the same color. I won’t enumerate all of the different challenges, but the likelihood of getting bored with the game is quite slim.

The music was pleasant to listen to, using chiptunes to match the retro-style art. I couldn’t tell if there was any particular pattern as to which tracks would play in the exploration part of the world, but given there is no actual combat and it’s all purely platforming, it didn’t really matter. The music set the mood and I didn’t have any complaints on it being too distracting or boring.

I thoroughly enjoyed V6. There is a little bit of replayability, such as obtaining a faster time, less deaths, or saving the crew members in a different order to read their dialogues. I have revisited my finished game to try and finish off the rest of the map, but I quickly found out that traversing the challenge submaps backwards is either incredibly difficult or just not possible. The mini-challenge of collecting discs I opted out of because these required a little bit more time and finesse as the discs are often in submaps with more difficult challenges than normal. Some of the discs are hidden away in less explored areas and if I weren’t so enamored with exploring, I probably would not have run across the few I have.

The only real complaint is the “slipperiness” of the controls in that your character is likely to overshoot or undershoot where you expect him to be. It’s not too bad that it becomes frustrating, but it does become noticeable in challenges that require a very fine control over your character.

Since the game is playable in small chunks and completable in 2 hours of casual gameplay (excluding the optional mini-challenge of disc-hunting), I would recommend this game to anyone who’s interested in platformers. If you can get over the near-simplistic retro graphics and just enjoy the gameplay itself, you will most likely be rewarded and enjoy your time with it.