Take a moment and clear your mind. Imagine, if you will, being a wizard, one-half yellow and the other half a magnificent hue of purple. While your outfit may be split directly down the middle, you are one whole being. Now, with the swift swipe of a sword, you have been chopped into half, and you need to control both halves of your body to overcome lightning-fast puzzle platforming sections. That is the basic premise of Ambidextro, but it’s so much more than that. It’s one of the most interesting premises I’ve seen in a video game, and it made my brain hurt so bad while I was playing. But I can’t get enough of it.
Clear Your Mind Before Trying ‘Ambidextro’, Otherwise You May Make Zero Progress
The basic premise of Ambidextro is very simple. I control the Yellow Wizard with the left stick and left trigger to jump. The purple wizard, on the other hand (pun intended), is controlled with the right stick and right trigger. Seems simple enough, right? Well, what the game doesn’t tell you until you’ve completed Level 1 is that these levels are timed. And they get progressively more difficult, as any platformer should. But the balancing act needed to get both Wizards to the middle of the stage to touch staves together is much more difficult than you may originally imagine.
I coasted through the first levels with ease, trying to figure out when the challenge would start. And I quickly ate my words, hand-delivered to me on a silver platter of my own making. Ambidextro gets difficult incredibly quickly, especially if your attention is even the utmost divided at the time of playing. As the kids say, you’ll need to lock in if you’re hoping to succeed in Ambidextro. Thankfully, as far as I can tell, there is no punishment for “rewinding” too much. As I’ve admittedly failed stages far more than I originally thought I would. I’m genuinely excited to see people do No Rewind/100|100 Speedruns of this game. The mental gymnastics are real, and Ambidextro is the perfect example of that.
Seriously, while Blue Prince may be on everybody else’s mind at the moment, I can’t stop thinking about Ambidextro. The unique premise, alongside the brain-melting control scheme, is going to keep me occupied for a long time. After sneaking a peek at some of the later stages, I don’t even know if my mind is large enough to figure out how to get through them in time. I can’t wait.
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