Super Rude Bear Resurrection has a neat premise. It’s an ultra-hard platformer that only gets easier with failure. Every time your bear with attitude dies, he leaves behind a plush, spike-covering corpse, one that will gum up the various traps that would normally kill you. It’s a neat way to bring less skilful players into the world of brutal platformers, but it’s not without some small issues.
For a game about tight platforming, Super Rude Bear Resurrection is extremely slippery. The bear is very difficult to stop where you need him to, and while this forward momentum is handy for players who are looking to rush through the game, it makes for some annoyances for players who want to take their jumps a bit more carefully. Even getting the bear to stop on a decent-sized platform is difficult.
This is, arguably, not much of a problem due to the game’s generous checkpoints, which do make the game very approachable, as well as the handy corpse system. Dying just isn’t a big deal, since every death does cover up a chunk of spikes, break a trap, or plug up whatever device killed you. Even if you die, you’ve still made the next run easier.
It’s a useful system, too. Should you find yourself stuck in an area lined with spikes, you can just go nuts dying there, eventually covering the whole floor with bodies until you can waltz through. Moments of frustration where you just hurl yourself to your death will only make things easier, rather than just be a useless outburst. It’s very handy for newcomers or those prone to controller breaking.
That said, the bodies sometimes behave strangely, leaving odd openings you may not expect. Also, bodies can sometimes appear and disappear on each run, opening up that spiked pit you thought you’d plugged with bear innards. It seems like a glitch and could be patched out in the future, but at the moment, the bodies aren’t a totally reliable way of making things easier.
Not that you can just spam deaths and beat the game. Even with this system, Super Rude Bear Resurrection presents the vicious challenge one would expect from a hard platformer. It continually reinvents itself, narrowing the safe landing areas and time limits to make jumps, pushing players to be skilled. The death system just makes it a little easier, by its end.
Super Rude Bear Resurrection brings players vicious platforming but softens the blow with plush bear corpses. Slippery movement and some unreliable mechanics make this a bit harder than it ought to be for new players, but overall offers a good challenge, creative level design, and animals with ‘tude. Which never goes out of style.
