Xbox is having a massive sale on a bunch of wonderful games that feature pixel art! This sale, the Pixel Art Perfection sale, is running until Monday the 8th of October, with tons of games you can pick up for your console. With so many options, we have selected a few games for you to check out.
Dead Cells — 20% off at $19.99
Dead Cells is a roguevania that takes you through an ever-changing island. The game itself is tough but fair, featuring permadeath — so you will need to watch your toes in this action-packed game. All the weapons you could need are at your disposal, and you can build and customize your character along the way…
There’s certainly been some care to make sure that each rendition of the levels feels unique and fresh. You literally never know what’s around the corner. Surprisingly, even with the cyclical nature of the game, it does lead to an ending after a final boss, but I won’t spoil any info about that here.
Read the full review, with focus on the way death is portrayed in video games.
Purchase Dead Cells in the Pixel Art Perfection Sale.
Stardew Valley – 25% off at $11.24
I’d be incredibly surprised if you haven’t heard of Stardew Valley, the lovely farming simulator which sees you become one with the community around you as the seasons change. If you haven’t had the chance to play it, pick it up now while it’s on sale!
Every new day will throw something new at you, whether it be some crops to harvest, another birthday to celebrate, or a new animal to take care of. Couple with the fact that Stardew Valley is pretty much infinitely replayable with multiple different locations to set up your farm, a totally customizable farmyard and character.
Purchase Stardew Valley in the Pixel Art Perfection Sale.
Hyper Light Drifter — 50% off at $9.99
Hyper Light Drifter is a meaningful action-adventure RPG where you attempt to explore a dark landscape. You are a collector of forgotten knowledge, lost technologies and broken history, but are suffering from an illness that you hope to figure out how to cure.
The main thing that gets me about Hyper Light Drifter is how it’s essentially told through it’s visuals and music, like a wonderful thought provoking theatre performance. There’s a moment near the beginning where you’re wandering along after battling a few enemies, then you come to a ledge. The camera crabs round to the left and you see a city before you, stood proudly in the distance, the music at this point swells dramatically and a wave of fascination overcomes you.
Purchase Hyper Light Drifter in the Pixel Art Perfection Sale.
Songbringer Bundle — 60% off at $7.99
Songbringer is an action RPG with a massive world to explore. You play as Roq Epimetheos, who loves partying, making music and exploring the world in his ship called Songbringer. Your goal is to explore planets and find what has been left behind…
It’s a the type of game that is addictive and fun and you can easily start playing it at midnight and next thing you know it’s 5:30 am and you have to get the kids up and ready for school in half an hour (that also actually happened). It’s games like this that really endear me to indie gaming, when not only do individuals have the vision for something great, but also the talent to bring it all to life in a meaningful way.
Purchase Songbringer in the Pixel Art Perfection Sale.
Axiom Verge — 50% off at $10.00
Axiom Verge is a retro-inspired, side-scrolling, action-adventure game where you explore an alien world, blasting and killing the aliens that inhabit it. The world around you is full of demons, puzzles and glitches, which you will need to overcome to stay alive.
I could go on and on about the good points of Axiom Verge for quite some time and rightfully so, as there are a lot, but I think you get the point by now. It’s certainly a labor of love, and it shows, so it may come as a surprise that such a wonderful game was made by one person: Tom Happ. A game as thoroughly consistent as this is — from the art to the story and music — shows one singular, cohesive vision.
Purchase Axiom Verge in the Pixel Art Perfection Sale.
Death Road To Canada — 40% off at $8.99
Death Road to Canada is a randomized action game full of replayability. You and the people you find along the way smash through various zombies and attempt to get all the way to Canada.
Death Road To Canada is seriously replayable and highly addictive. I’ve not made it to Canada yet; the closest I’ve been is one day’s drive away and then I watched my avatar get destroyed by a massive horde outside a log cabin. In other attempts, I’ve also watched my avatar sulk and run away with most of the supplies. This upset my husband (and his avatar) considerably.
Purchase Death Road to Canada in the Pixel Art Perfection Sale.
Deep Ones — 30% off at $3.49
Deep Ones is a retro arcade-platformer which takes you on an adventure through the ocean after your submarine crashes. Determined to reclaim submarine from a red octopus, you must explore the bottom of the ocean, fighting loads of sea creatures, in the hopes of getting your ship back.
Overall, Deep Ones is a game for those who like their traditional platforming combined with traditional platforming frustration. Those who mind the game’s difficulty and cannot be swayed by its aesthetics should nevertheless give its excellent soundtrack a chance.
Purchase Deep Ones in the Pixel Art Perfection Sale.
Phantom Trigger — 50% off at $7.49
Phantom Trigger is a hardcore slasher-meets-RPG following the story of a person named Stan. You must fight off various demons that want to destroy you. Using spells and traps, you can keep control and avoid chaos — without getting in your own way.
To fight against the hordes of strange evil monsters, you have a few ‘weapons’ to fight back. You start off with a whip which you can use to pull enemies closer, and a teleporty-dash kind of thing to hop around the place. Before starting the game proper you are also given some ice cubes to punch with by a tree (it’s a very weird game). These ice cubes can be used to do combos of three attacks, and can be levelled up by using them and looking into strange mirrors.
Purchase Phantom Trigger in the Pixel Art Perfection Sale.
Slime-san Superslime Edition — 30% off at $10.49
Slime-san Superslime Edition is a hardcore platformer where you must move quickly through the body of a giant worm. You and your bird pal need to jump, slide and slime your way through various levels, avoiding stomach acid. There is a whole world inside this stomach, full of many creatures, waiting to be explored…
Another feature I liked was the ability to upgrade and change game features using little apples that litter the levels. Whilst these are only sometimes hard to reach, finding the time to get them can be tough as levels get harder, and it’s nice that there is a proper reward for doing so. Should you collect enough, Slime-San can visit a town and purchase upgrades that change how he plays in subtle (and not so subtle) ways.
Purchase Slime-san Superslime Edition in the Pixel Art Perfection Sale.
The Final Station — 50% off at $7.50
In The Final Station, you travel around a dying world via train, keeping your passengers alive and making sure your train stays operational. The world is full of zombies, each very infected, and you will need to find supplies and kill those in your way at each and every station.
The setting is rich, the audio is eerie when needed, and the plot twists are played out in a precise enough manner that the one-sided conversations rattled around in my head afterwards, and still left enough room for interpretation that it stuck with me after I finished up with the game.
Purchase The Final Station in the Pixel Art Perfection Sale.
FOX n FORESTS — 50% off at $5.00
Another retro-inspired game, this time it’s an action platformer where you play as a brave fox! You can make your way through various seasons, flying, shooting and slashing enemies as they appear. Find amazing secrets, defeat epic bosses and stay alive.
That said, these gameplay decisions take nothing from the visual and auditory beauty Fox n Forests delivers. Each of the (unfortunately short in number) levels is intricately designed, with wonderful, contrasting seasons, and music that suits the era which inspired the game to a tee. Fox n Forests manages what so few retro-inspired games do: it transcends tribute, instead feeling like a classic which was lost in time.
Purchase Fox n Forests in the Pixel Art Perfection Sale.
The Long Reach — 50% off at $7.50
The Long Reach is a horror adventure game, full of mysteries in small-town America. There are puzzles to solve, mysteries you can attempt to uncover, or the choice to run from all of the disaster happening around you. Plenty of characters live within this town, all with their own stories…
The story was engaging, the twists were genuinely surprising and I didn’t see them coming at all, even in spite of the foreshadowing. The puzzles were smartly implemented and just on the right side of challenging without being frustrating, all while managing to be logical rather than “guess what the developer was thinking”. I would recommend giving this game a look, just try to avoid spoilers before heading in.
