Guacamelee!

Guacamelee! is a colorful platformer inspired by Mexican culture, folk motifs, and above all the world of lucha libre wrestlers. You play the farmer Juan, who after a botched clash with the main villain gains a magic mask along with the abilities of a professional wrestler. The goal is to rescue the mayor's kidnapped daughter, but the main joy comes from the journey itself through an interconnected world full of villages, temples, deserts, and jungles, which opens up gradually as you gain new moves.

Combat here matters just as much as movement, which sets the game apart from most metroidvanias. You slam enemies to the ground, launch them into the air, and chain hits and special moves onto them that are also used to smash colored blocks in the environment. Every new attack thus serves both combat and exploration, and because colored barriers require a specific move, fights are often a puzzle about the right order of strikes. The second main mechanic is switching between the world of the living and the dead, where platforms in one plane appear while vanishing in the other. In more complex passages you switch mid-jump, leading to inventive and demanding platforming sequences.

The visuals rely on flat vector graphics with rich colors and bold outlines, so the game looks sharp at any resolution and runs entirely without demands on PC. The music mixes Latin American motifs with electronic elements and holds a brisk pace well. Humor is ever-present, including plenty of references to other games and internet culture, which will land better with some players than others. The title also supports local multiplayer co-op. Reception was very favorable, especially for the combination of combat with exploration, and the game received both an expanded version and a sequel. Today it ranks among the more brisk and accessible representatives of the genre. Difficulty rises considerably in the later platforming passages, and the closing stretches rank among the most demanding the genre has to offer, so there's certainly no shortage of challenge.