By Charly SHELTON

In a world of “Halo,” “Uncharted” and “Injustice” video games, it’s nice every once in a while for a person to revisit their gaming roots with a classic platformer. Games like “Unravel” released in 2016 swept the scene with critical acclaim for brand new platformers and “Ducktales: Remastered” and “Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse,” which were polished-up versions of ’80s and ’90s games from NES and Sega Genesis, have a surprisingly devoted audience of gamers who take their gaming with a side of nostalgia. So with these classic puzzle-solving, double-jumping, side-scrolling action games coming back into vogue, “Albert & Otto: The Adventure Begins” is the right choice for a little break in between other games. Initially released on PC and mobile in 2015, it has now made its way to consoles and, honestly, that is the way to play.

The official description for the game states that it is “a haunting world set in 1939 Germany” where the main character, Albert, goes off in search of a mysterious girl in rabbit ears. But the game doesn’t give you much of that story, other than the helmets on some of the giant robots looking vaguely German and some German script on boxes, which look like the Ark of the Covenant box from “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” The game starts by dropping a boy from the sky, armed with a shotgun and a telekinetic rabbit doll, who upon landing starts the platforming game. Throughout the levels are post boxes with drawings of the mysterious girl and other characters that we never get to meet; no explanation is given at all. So if you are into a game with deep storylines or any discernible characters, this is not for you. It is just a straight platformer with the goal of going forward.

That’s not to say it isn’t fun. The puzzles are challenging but not insurmountable, the action engaging and Albert – who has a shotgun to dispatch enemies and a rabbit toy named Otto that has electrical powers or telekinesis or something – has a lot of options on how to solve the level. I really had a good time playing it, but then again there isn’t really a whole lot to it. It’s a nice in-between game to take a break between the intense action of other games and just jump around solving some puzzles.

The final boss battle will give you some trouble, but it is the boss battle – it should be tough. Altogether, I died 170 times throughout the game because there are some levels when the player has to die to discover the next challenge. It’s like the film “Groundhog Day” in which Bill Murray lives through each challenge of the day and gets better at meeting them each time. My complaint only applies to the checkpoint lengths, especially in the final stage. With so many jumps and shots fired and puzzles to be figured out, some of which are very closely timed, it would be nice to not have to go back over the last nine puzzles or acrobatic feats if you mess up on one landing.

But other than that, it’s a solid puzzle platformer that does its job. I enjoyed it, I was puzzled and I feel accomplished for finishing it. Originally planned as the first of four episodes, the ending states “to be continued,” but the future installments were cut due to lack of funding. With the console release, maybe there will be enough interest to get funding on future installments and I would be happy to see them if they ever materialize.

“Albert & Otto: The Adventure Begins” was recently released on PlayStation and XBOX for $11.99, on Steam for $4.99 and on mobile for $1.99, but I highly recommend the PC or console version; I don’t know if I could have finished it on mobile.

  Charly Shelton