jacob contreras

Just finished The Messenger. The short take is that it's a clone of Ninja Gaiden on NES, but with some surprises built in that take it above and beyond. Really good controls, gameplay and NES feel. Graphics and music are fantastic. I'd almost give it a perfect score but a little too much backtracking gets minus half a point. Toward the end there are some jumps that feel dependent on a single pixel to complete and are super frustrating but the save spots are pretty generous and well-placed so you basically just keep throwing yourself at it til you get good. Overall very satisfying retro platformer. My score is a 9.5/10