I'm Tesla-glad I didn't finish it.

I was doing pretty well with Teslagrad right up until the final boss fight.

Teslagrad has considerable good going for it. Beneath its thin facade of Metroidvania lies a fun and tightly-crafted puzzle-platformer, with magnetism mechanics (more correct than Magrunner's) and a sort-of post-steampunk electric aesthetic. The art style is cool, with some legit-sweet 3D perspective tricks on its 2D plane of gameplay, and its puzzle rooms are really great at exercising the brain.

But there is a darkness lurking in Teslagrad, one which becomes more evident as the game plods along. The first boss fight makes the game's intentions clear: to punish the player, without mercy or remorse, with one-hit kills, sparse checkpoints, and pseudo-random events (in this boss's case, the placement and timing of crate obstacles). Later puzzles and boss fights amplify these, with more instant-death threats, more-precise timing and positioning requirements, and longer, more-involved encounters. It handily measures up to Super Meat Boy in terms of demanding and unforgiving platforming.

Teslagrad has that Mega Man style of unfairness that I really hate -- where death can come instantly and without warning, forcing the player to re-tread content just for the sake of learning where a single obstacle might come from. It's some troll-level memorization bullshit, like if Guitar Hero required a perfect rating before unlocking the next song. Despite its open-looking map, Teslagrad is actually quite linear, so getting stuck on some challenge means replaying it, over and over and over, until finally getting it just right.

The majority of my time with Teslagrad was actually quite fun, and I would have been happy to "finish" it; but every time I re-attempted the final boss, I got that much closer to just loathing the whole production. It doesn't feel fair, that the margin of error on the dash is so low, and that the cooldown time isn't visually indicated, and that a minutes-long boss encounter can be ruined with a single misstep. I'm thankful for what the game does well, but have no patience left for this shit.

Better than: Chronology
Not as good as: 1000 Amps
For some vicarious frustration: check this part out, it is ri-goddamn-diculous.

Progress: Got to the last boss, 15 scrolls collected.