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It’s been a good while since I reviewed the first Awesome Pea game, and I must say the wee lad has had something of a glow up. It looks like the bar has been lifted, as Awesome Pea 3 marks the final outing for our healthy little hero.
This time around the adventure is presented in full colour, the tried and tested pixel graphics remain but are much easier on the eye. The greenwashed CRT style has been done away with and this is also true of the world map setup. Instead you play through all 69 stages sequentially, hopping straight from one to the other. You can head back to the main menu and play any of them again after completing them, if you should wish.
Awesome Pea 3 carries on very much in the vein of its two predecessors, with the fast paced platformer requiring just as much precision to make it through each stage. One thing that struck me was that this time around things felt much more challenging. This is pretty much from the word go too. There’s no hand holding, you’re thrown straight in and as soon as you clock the death counter at the top of the screen, you can guess what kind of ride you’re in for.
It’s hazards galore and if you come within even a whisker of a spike or an axe, you’ll be taken right back to the start of the level. There are a few other variables thrown into the mix, such as crumbling platformers, buzzsaws and floating spike balls. In all honesty, for those of you who have played this type of game before, it will all feel very familiar.
In each level there are a number of coins to collect, and achievements up for grabs for doing so in certain levels. This is where Awesome Pea 3 surprisingly avoids the usual routine of effortlessly raining down Gamerscore on you in return for very little effort. However, your main aim is to grab the key, which will unlock the exit portal to the next stage.
The titular vegetable moves quickly, and has a certain weight to him. He can only jump and dash, but you can grab pickups in mid air which will allow you to repeat these manoeuvres. This is where the more challenging segments come in, as you will need to time your moves to perfection. Nothing less will suffice.
Climbing and jumping between walls is also possible, and indeed necessary in many levels, but it’s something of a nightmare to control with precision. Instead, I found myself sliding down into a spiky death, or letting go completely and plunging to, well, a spiky death. This is because you need to not only point the thumbstick against the wall you wish to climb, but also then move up or down without breaking contact. It’s as difficult as it sounds. Thankfully, using the D-Pad instead of a thumbstick seemed to make the controls much more comfortable, and less prone to errors.
However, once you get past these frustrations, Awesome Pea 3 is good fun and offers a satisfying difficulty curve to conquer. Sure, at times you’ll want to leave an Xbox shaped controller in your wall, but you’ll never get driven to that point; just close to it at times.
That said, you’ll most likely master all the levels in a couple of hours and then your time with Awesome Pea 3 will be at an end. Still, at a modest asking price of £4.19 it’s hard to grumble really.
Awesome Pea 3 bears all the hallmarks of the many, many platform games that came before it. That doesn’t prevent it from being a solid couple of hours of fun however, and possibly the best in the series. It’s always good to go out on a high.