Platformers have started to see a resurgence in popularity, in no small part thanks to the advancements in digital distribution of video games across all major home platforms as well as on handhelds. Over the Top Games may have just given us one of the better titles in this platforming renaissance though, as NyxQuest: Kindred Spirits released this week on WiiWare.

There is very little to complain about in NyxQuest; it’s quite the looker, it plays very smoothly, and even though the game clocks in at roughly 3-4 hours, it is packed full of diverse puzzles and levels that require you to think and think quickly in order to progress. Before anyone complains about the game length, remember that it (A) costs $10 and (B) other platformers of this length have released at retail for three times the price this year (and not necessarily with the same level of quality either). You’re going to love every second of however much time you invest in NyxQuest, so there’s nothing to worry about.

You play as Nyx, who has herself a little crush on a human named Icarus. Icarus (and his famous wings) used to visit Nyx during the day and disappear at night so she could attend to her duties as a goddess. One day, Helios, a powerful Titan, decides that he doesn’t like humanity very much, and wants to wipe it off the planet and begin anew. The once beautiful and lively Greece becomes a ruined desert filled with a scorching heat, one you must avoid as you traverse the land looking for your lost love.

To find him, you will need to move through famous areas of ancient Greece that you will recognize in name alone, as the famous monuments and buildings are for the most part toppled and buried under the sand. You control Nyx through the environment by using the analog stick on the Nunchuk, and you fly (although briefly, with a recharging number of wing flaps) by pressing the A button. You can glide with Z, and you will need to become very good at timing all of these flaps and glides in order to reach the higher areas of the levels. You learn new skills every few levels–like the ability to use the wind to guide you through certain portions of levels, or the ability to carry around fire and fireballs in order to open up rooms and vanquish enemies–and you also see brand new puzzles that are always more difficult than the ones you previously finished.

The game stacks ideas and puzzles together, and by the last few levels you will find yourself doing three or four things at a time, trying to stave off enemies, fly over gaps, avoid spikes by gliding and control blocks or fireballs in order to move further. The game preps you for this very well though, by gradually bumping up the difficulty and intelligently introducing these ideas the way they have, so you will never feel helpless; rather, you will feel like the game is a very smooth and flowing experience, despite the somewhat slow pace. In short, the gameplay is wonderful. The pace is slow at first, but it’s because of the way puzzles are presented to you, so that you can figure things out on your own and for yourself. Methodical, rather than plodding, is one way to think of it.

As for how this game looks…well, you can see it in the screens we’ve included, can’t you? The 2.5D backgrounds are epic in their appearance, and Nyx is this tiny creature facing off against both the environment in addition to the enemies in her path. They are stunning to look at, and I’m not sure what magic of the Greek gods Over the Top Games employed to make all of those assets fit under the file size limit, but they did, and WiiWare now has a new competitor for top graphics on the service because of it. The music is also very fitting and improves the experience–it reminds me of the music from the Diablo series, in that it blends in with the background and then storms out at certain points just to remind you how good it sounds.

NyxQuest problems are small ones: there isn’t much variety in the enemies, and there is never any kind of large-scale boss fight, even at the end (though there are mini-bosses scattered amongst the levels, and a final confrontation is included). It’s more of a puzzle based platformer than a pure action title though, so it doesn’t bother you as much as you think it would. If the game was constantly throwing enemies at you, it would be different, but the environment is your biggest foe throughout. The levels themselves also stay very similar at least in appearance (never in gameplay) with a few exceptions. Neither of these issues is a game-breaker though, and the good far, far outweighs any bad you may encounter in NyxQuest.

Blast Factor: Over the Top Games’ first WiiWare outing is one of the service’s best. The pacing is fantastic, the platforming is some of the best from the 2D realm this generation, and the use of the Wii Remote’s IR function in conjunction with the Nunchuk makes Nyx easy and satisfying to use. Let’s not forget that it looks just as good as it plays, either. If you haven’t already sunk your $10 into NyxQuest: Kindred Spirits, it better be the first thing you do when you finish reading this paragraph.

Unless you like skipping over large amounts of our content at a time, you would know that we have a soft spot for the upcoming NyxQuest: Kindred Spirits. We like platformers, and we like pretty platformers with neat game mechanics, and from the looks of things, NyxQuest hits all three of those points. That’s why I’m glad we sat down to talk about the game with Roberto Alvarez de Lara Sieder of Over the Top Games, the developer behind Nyx’s first adventure. We’ve also included exclusive screens of the game for you, so if you haven’t seen the title yet, now is your chance for some visual learning as well.

BLAST: We want to know about Over the Top Games. Tell us who you are and what you are about.

Roberto Alvarez de Lara Sieder: We are a team of young developers with a lot of passion for the game industry! We have been making games for some time for other companies, and one year ago we decided to create our own studio to work on our own game designs.

BLAST: What kind of games do you play when you aren’t making them?

RADLS: In my case I like to play all kind of games. I’m a big fan of games like Katamari Damacy, Shadow of the Colussus and those that stand out for some reason. I’m a big fan of FPS like Counter Strike and Unreal Tournament.

In our office there are people that love RPGs and that are fans of Nintendo franchises like Super Mario Bros, Metroid and Capcom’s Mega Man. As you can see we are all players!

BLAST: We can see in the trailer and from screenshots that NyxQuest is a platformer. Tell us a little about the gameplay that you may not be able to glean from the media available.

RADLS: From the start we wanted to create a platformer that used the Wii Remote in original ways. The main concept was “a character that needs help from gods to advance in his adventure”. From there we chose to base everything in the myth of Icarus and Greek Mythology, because it was a nice mix.

BLAST: Visually, NyxQuest looks fantastic. The backgrounds give the game an epic look, as you control your relatively small character through the levels. What inspired Over the Top Games to implement this art style?

RADLS: We wanted the environment to feel epic. The adventure of Nyx is an enormous task. She leaves her realm to find her dearest friend, Icarus, and she finds herself in a hostile world. We wanted the sceneries to transmit that to the player.

Sources of inspiration are Dali and Giorgio de Chirico. They have awesome paintings that transmit just what we wanted.

BLAST: How does co-op gameplay work in NyxQuest?

RADLS: Co-op is big fun, because one of the players controls Nyx, the main character, and the other controls the powers from the gods. It requires a lot of synchronization! But it makes for fun gameplay and the best part is that it allows you to change positions for a different experience. We always laugh when we play the parts with big columns that one needs to grab for the main player to advance.

BLAST: When do you think the game will release in North America? Europe seems to having a great time with it, and we’re all jealous.

RADLS: We are sorry for that! My sources tell me you won’t have to wait a lot!

BLAST: Do you have any other projects you would like to tell us about? Is there anything else you want our readers to click away from this interview knowing about NyxQuest that we didn’t cover?

RADLS: We are now working on some new ideas for new games. ‚ We are discussing where to go next and for what platform.

I hope everyone has a good time playing NyxQuest and enjoys the game as much as we enjoyed creating it. We placed a lot of ‘love’ into that game

One of the WiiWare titles I am most looking forward to–and that’s in a summer loaded with them–is Over The Top Games’ NyxQuest: Kindred Spirits. Earlier this week, you may have known this game as Icarian: Kindred Spirits, but a namechange was enforced due to some issues (and no, it’s not because of Nintendo and Kid Icarus, you can even check their official Twitter account for proof of that). Nyx is the protagonist, so the new title makes sense in that regard, but even if you were fond of the old name, what you should care about are these delightful screens I have included below. The game is a platformer that looks to make use of the IR functions of the Wii Remote, sort of like LostWinds did when the service debuted. Also like LostWinds, it’s clear that the developers were dedicated to their project, and have come up with something that looks amazing on Nintendo’s little white box. The Wii can do stylized, and in the right hands you can get some serious visual beauty out of it.

I love the scale of Nyx against the impressive backgrounds. It helps add to the idea that what you are looking at is epic, especially when you see the size of the boss you face in the trailer. This combination of 2D movement with 3D backgrounds helps create some wonderful aesthetics, ones you can see even when the game isn’t in motion.

The game recently released in Europe, so here’s hoping that it will be here shortly. We’ll have more info for you either here or in our news section when as it releases. Be sure to check out the trailer at the game’s official website.