Beyond the Ice Palace II, is a single player action-platformer for the PS5. The game's a real call back to the days of 8-bit, with the original coming out in 1988. To be honest, the original wasn’t the best game.

The game will appeal to old school gamers

The story is minimum at best. You play a lone King, previously weakened, who must battle and subdue the evil which has invaded your land and that’s about it. Well-worn trope with limited development.

It’s unlikely that many gamers under a certain age will even remember the original, but with the plethora of retro side scrolling platformers being released, this seems as good a time as any to dust the old game off.

The game ends up with some pros, but also some cons. On the one hand the gothic pixel art has been enhanced with some modern lighting effects and some of the locations are well executed. Music will be a very personal choice.

The linear progression can be at times frustrating. The game lacks the smoothness in motion one would expect for what is essentially an 8-bit game running on a modern machine. Jumps and combat remain difficult, your character moves slowly and has minimum lives. There is little in the way of RGP elements with only a handful of weapons or spells which do not evolve much.

This is a brutal experience with not enough check points, if you die you will respawn at your last checkpoint, but all your cash will be gone. Bosses are deliberately difficult, even though you slowly regain your former power, just bashing away at the bosses will just get you killed, studying their movements and attacks are the only way to survive. Even if you do all this there is no guarantee you will, which can feel a little frustrating.

This is a brutal experience with not enough check points

Combat gives you a heavy and light attack as well as a flail attack, you also must use your weapon to grab objects to remove them from your progression as well as using it to grab hold of rings to reach higher platforms.

The game does a fair job at explaining the control, but not always why. For instance, the first enemies you’ll come up against are skeletons. They do not put up much of a fight, but when you run over them you must press L1, the game does not explain that this is to dispel them, fail to do this and they continue to respawn, useful I guess if you want to farm a particular enemy, but its not very intuitive.

There are a few shops where you can buy consumables, this sounds good until you discover that these can only be bought once, so their overall benefit to the game is limited, given the number of times you’re going to die.

Play as a lone King, who must battle the evil which has invaded your land

The biggest issue with the game is the controls. Input isn’t great and often your character will refuse to grab ledges they should easily have caught.

It will appeal to old school gamers who don’t want to have their hands held or have effectively a ‘story mode’, but the challenge and the limitations of the game may put off a more modern audience.

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Charles Packer