[Review] Halloween Forever - Nintendo Switch

Developed By: Imaginary Monsters / Peter Lazarski
Published By: Chuhai Labs
Categories: Retro, Platformer
Release Date: 02.12.21

I really like holiday themed games. They’re really not common anymore, so it’s always a shock to see them. Here we have Halloween Forever, where in the game after some witchcraft it’s Halloween…Forever! What we have is a retro platformer. In looks, in mechanics, and definitely in difficulty. None of this feels like a detriment to the game however. It’s all endearing.

Five stages. Each with their own boss and midboss. There’s no continues, so you gotta do this all in one go. Luckily, this isn’t a one hit kill affair (unless you toggle that mode on). You have five hitpoints, can find hearts to heal from defeating enemies, and you have 3 lives, with more to be found. Found is a good word for playing this game.

There’s lots of doors to go into. The game isn’t so much full of mazes, but branching paths. Pink Doors are the ones you’ll want to hunt down, as they’ll have new paths for hidden characters or bonus lives. There’s a decent number of characters to unlock and they all play a tad differently. One has exploding shots, one has a spread shot, one can shoot downward, etc… Halloween Forever isn’t exactly a long game, so having so many characters to track down is a great reason to replay the game. On top of that, you can hunt down half a dozen runes, which can change the ending.

Halloween Forever a cute game. It’s not too deep, but nor is it trying to be. It’s kind of like the candy you’d get on Halloween. A cheap game, that’d be perfect to play around the season.