Overcome (PC)
It’s impressive how just a few shape and color choices can convey a narrative that is both clearly based in specific emotions but broadly applicable. Overcome may be directly based on its developer’s own struggles with cancer and life balance, but with just one heart at the center of the tale and only metaphorical imagery to imply its developing story, it’s not hard for anyone to relate to a tale of pushing forward as the struggles of life threaten to swallow up your mind set.
Beginning first with the heart in a peaceful and bright area, darkness washes over the world, the heart left to search for a way to bring that brightness back by pushing deep into the hostile shape its environment has assumed. Whether it be the dreary darkness, the angry burning flames, or the chilling cold, every step of its journey uses pretty identifiable visual metaphors for steps of dealing with negative emotions and near the end it even makes a small but realistic statement about the difficult battle one faces with trying to overcome such heartaches. The emotions come across clearly, although what is being said in all enemies also being hearts is a bit more ambiguous. They could be manifestations of one’s internalized self-defeating proclivities or may represent external factors pushing against self betterment, but just because there’s some wiggle room in reading every part of this tale doesn’t mean it failed in making its messages clear enough to relate to.
One way Overcome mixes its narrative messages with the gameplay is its difficulty level. To try and match the battle of overcoming emotional stress, the platforming gameplay at the center of the experience is also made hard to overcome. While jumping correctly is a must, rarely is it the core focus of a challenge, only a few moments really requiring any real speed or dexterity when it comes to landing consecutive jumps with small windows of success. For the most part, the challenges you face involve timing your actions correctly to get around hazards or manipulating the actions of enemies the right way. In a segment where lasers turn off and on in set intervals, you need to manipulate your dropping speed to make sure you slip through when you won’t be vaporized. When there are giant hearts stomping around in the snow, you need to make sure to jump when they land to avoid being stunned by the ground shaking. When an enemy comes charging at you, you need to make sure you time your jump properly to get over it. A lot of these small interactions will get pushed further and further, with either other enemies and considerations entering the fray or the platform layout making it harder to squeak past during your windows of opportunity.
Despite the intentional difficulty though, the game actually only contains four main stages that are split up with well spaced checkpoints to make sure that failure is a felt setback but you can still make appreciable progress gradually enough. Perhaps one small fault in the difficulty though is that with some enemies it ends up being more about waiting for them to get to a certain part of their walk cycles rather than actively baiting or interacting with them. This is a game where the length of play will be determined by how well you learn how to progress and if you can pull off the execution, but even with the small downtime caused by waiting out walk cycles, things shouldn’t hit a snag save for expected things like difficulty barriers. However, despite a tight jump being at the center of your navigation of this experience, the game manages to remain fresh and varied across its few levels by introducing new abilities in each segment.
While you do not actively attack your enemies, you do have a counter for a few of them. The first special ability your little heart will receive is a shield that will protect you in the direction you’re facing. However, when you jump, this shield will rise up to cover you from above, this more often than not making you more vulnerable rather than proving to be a useful helmet. Some of the most common enemies in the game though are enemies who fire shots at you that will instantly end you if they make contact, the shield meant to be your way to block the damage. Your shield does have a limited amount of energy before it breaks, so not only does this urge you to find a way out of the situation rather than hunkering down and blocking, it also plays into the narrative as a form of emotional fragility, your heart only able to take so much pressure. The shield does get more useful though when it becomes a way to deflect those projectiles, the player even able able to take out other enemies with a well deflected shot. Clearing the way onward can be accomplished with this method, but your enemies will be placed more strategically and with other troubles to try and ensure they remain a challenge even when you’re packing a counterattack.
Perhaps the most interesting upgrade to the shield is the gliding ability that lets you spend your shield energy on slowing down your fall, the game quick to make use of this with long gaps and precise falls down shafts where danger lurks below. Whenever the game hands you a new tool, it makes sure that it both feels satisfying to use but still faces new challenges that keep the game from being too easy. As you get more capable the obstacles before you require more from you, and while you will no doubt die as you learn the layout of your adventure, it is the kind of game where eventually winning is a satisfying feeling. It does appear possible to beat the game without dying if you know it well enough, the obstacles laid out to be both fair and spaced well enough where you can get a brief rest before tackling whatever lies ahead. This design also ensures that during a normal playthrough, overcoming the trials before you remains a possible and achievable task even when it might seem daunting at first blush.
THE VERDICT: Overcome wears its tale of emotional turmoil in an easily readable manner, but by being direct with much of its imagery, it manages to capture not only what the developer was going for, but its metaphors allow it to encompass the many different struggles a person’s heart faces in life. This concept even extends into the level of challenge on offer, Overcome providing difficult but fair play that manages to remain enjoyable despite the inevitable setbacks. Your small skill set expands in simple ways to keep the game growing as you reach the end of a somewhat short experience, but keeping it compact also ensures even its toughest moments can be conquered in a decent time frame. With its focus on timing your actions and enemy manipulation, it remains a decent challenge up until you’ve finally overcome all the game has thrown at you.
And so, I give Overcome for PC…
A GOOD rating. A microcosm of the joys players get from overcoming tough gaming challenges, Overcome juxtaposes the satisfaction of getting past a hard platforming segment with that of making progress on a real life emotional problem, all without saying anything to tell such a tale. Things are on the nose in its favor, the player not needing to look too deep for an apparent statement on the struggle of maintaining mental health. The resonance of such a message may make some players feel more strongly about Overcome, but mechanically, it does pretty much all it can with its components. It’s a game that succeeds at making its hard moments hard and the systems utilized all perform their functions properly, so when you’re using your skills to deal with the enemies and environments, everything comes together as best they can, they’d just need more complexity to become something greater. Overcome is seemingly focused on keeping things simple though, whether it be the message or the play, so the fact it managed to squeeze enjoyable but challenging play from mixing together a few basic ingredients speaks well to the strength of the platforming design and concepts behind the heart’s gradual power-ups. It’s the kind of game that sets out do something and executes it just as intended, even the smallest of troubles like waiting out enemy walk cycles feeling inconsequential compared to how successful the other ideas in play are.
The length of the game does mean it can’t quite rub shoulders with some of the most replayable and complex difficult games, but as a bite-sized portion of them, Overcome captures the same vibes, presenting those challenges in the same minimalist manner that makes its emotional narrative so broadly relatable.