With the title and presentation, I was fully expecting Eddie's World to just be a standard Megaman-style adventure, and while some of the controls and enemies are very Megaman-like, it differentiates itself in several ways that combine to make it a completely different and awesome experience. Seriously, I was blown away with how unique and fun this game was to play through and 100%.

Drawing inspiration from other platformers like Mr. Gimmick, the game utilizes physics and throwable objects that give you interesting puzzles starting at stage 1. There are no real tutorials, so it will take a little experimentation to figure out how to first get started, but it's nice to not have the game hold your hand too much. These types of puzzles start with just the typical jumping on throwable objects to reach ledges or holding down switches, but eventually they feature bouncing, rolling, stacking, and all sorts of other properties that can make it fairly challenging.

Eddie himself can shoot bombs that either roll on the ground or arc up depending on the direction you hold, meaning your "jump-and-shoot" gameplay from Megaman is altered quite a bit. Soon after you clear stage 1, you'll start being introduced to new powerups that completely change all of your attacks/abilities, much like how a powerup in Kirby works. The "base" form included, there are 2 other main ones you'll be using, ice and wind. Ice allows you to do things like fire bouncing shots, freeze enemies to jump on and reflect projectiles, while Wind comes with the ability to slash enemies, stall in midair with a tornado kick and dash through projectiles. Each is fun to use and are incorporated well into the levels and puzzles involved.

Though enemies are your pretty standard Megaman-like affair, the bosses of each stage offer a great deal of variety, style and substance. Even for the bosses straight from other Megaman titles like Snake Man and Star Man, they use completely different attacks from their NES counterparts and have enough attacks to keep the fight interesting and dynamic throughout. Unlike in other Megaman games, you also have infinite lives, giving you plenty of time to learn patterns without having to start the stage over again. Falling down a pit also doesn't instantly kill you, so the game is extremely forgiving and rarely forces you to do any replaying of stages/sections. If anything, it might've been nice to have a "hard mode" that did incorporate some more lives/instant death for those who want a more classic challenge

The game involves progressing through several stages in order until you reach a "town hub" of sorts, at which point things become less linear. The town has several puzzles in it that reward you with tokens for clearing them, which you need to unlock further levels (which reward tokens for clearing) and sections of the town. This does slow things down a little bit, but the puzzles are very enjoyable and while running around town, you'll also encounter tons of NPCs (mostly Robot Masters) who have well-written dialogue. Finally, after collecting enough tokens, you'll unlock the final areas, including a "tower of trials" level and a final boss level. Both are great final challenges that have some awesome content to experience.

Spade_Magnes did a terrific job with this game and I hope to see more from him in the future!