Head Over Heels from QUByte Interactive is a classic isometric puzzle platformer now getting a second shot on Nintendo Switch. Check our Head Over Heels review!

 

Head Over Heels from QUByte Interactive is a classic isometric puzzle platformer now getting a second shot on Nintendo Switch. It’s part of the range of classic games that the publisher has released for consoles – which also includes The Immortal and The Humans Collection – which means we’re getting an old-school experience for a newer console. This time around, we’re getting a game that was originally released by Ocean Software way back in 1987 for 8-bit home computers.

The version we’re getting of Head Over Heels on Nintendo’s console comes from Retrospec, which is actually a remake based on the original version. It, therefore, brings it a bit closer to what the game’s cover looked like way back when it was first released 35 years ago. It’s certainly a more colorful experience, with more going on in each room that you explore – see the mesmerizing spinning blades you can check out on the game’s trailer above.

 

The game’s premise is as follows: Headus Mouthion (Head) and Footus Underium (Heels) are spies who are sent from Planet Freedom to liberate the enslaved planets of Penitentiary, Safari, Book World, and Egyptus. Along with this, they must defeat the Emperor so that he can’t continue to conquer more and more planets. Unfortunately, the pair is captured and is then separated into different cells at Castle Blacktooth. Your first task will be to help them escape so that they can continue with their plan to liberate each of the aforementioned planets so that they can go back to Planet Freedom as heroes.

You’ll control the two titular characters, first on their own and then at the same time. Each of the characters has different abilities to take advantage of. Head can shoot at enemies as long as it has managed to collect enough donut ammo for it, and it can also jump higher than Heels. Heels has legs and feet, which means it can run faster, carry around one object within the screen, as well as go up some stairs that Head can’t. When controlling Heads or Heels, you can move them around the screen with the left analog stick or the D-Pad, jumping with the B button. You can switch between them by pressing the X button.

 

There are items to collect and puzzles to solve. You’ll use teleporters to move to different rooms, floating platforms to get from point A to point B, will have to deal with conveyor belts that can help you or send you towards a boiling cauldron that will instantly kill your character, use switches to move statues around, push blocks and springs so that you can use them to get to otherwise out of reach spots, and more. The game demands some pixel-perfect jumping from you since if your character so much as looks at a hazard or an enemy the wrong way, you’ll lose a life.

Head Over Heels is certainly an old-school game with a new coat of paint. There are plenty of puzzles to solve in the many rooms you’ll explore during your time with this one, and it even has a lives system, which is very much a classic game thing. Make too many mistakes, and then it’s game over, and you’ll have to do it all over again from the start! Head Over Heels is out on Nintendo Switch with a $9.99 asking price.

Disclaimer
This Head Over Heels review is based on a Nintendo Switch copy provided by QUByte Interactive.