I’m at an age where I spend a lot of time reminiscing with my friends and family whenever we’re together. Sharing stories we’ve all heard a hundred times about years gone by and past friends whom we haven’t seen in years. As I approach middle age, I’m seeing just how much I cherish those memories and how they helped shape me into who I am today.
Maybe that’s why I was initially drawn to The Good Old Days, a 2D Metroidvania roguelite that follows four friends on one last adventure together. The tale of Sean, Foodie, Bruce, and Doc, who call themselves The Noogies, searching for hidden treasure while discovering who they are, is a heartwarming one with some touching moments sprinkled throughout. This is why it is such a shame that the encompassing game around this story is so lackluster.
Waxing Poetic
The story of The Good Old Days begins with a loan shark visiting the home of our main protagonist, Sean. Sean’s dad racked up an outstanding debt before mysteriously disappearing, and now they expect Sean to pay it back in full by the end of the day. On top of this, the rest of the Noogies have been kidnapped and are being held somewhere in the twisting labyrinth beneath Sean’s house. Sean must explore the tunnels below his home to rescue his friends and uncover the hidden treasure left behind by his ancestors to pay off his father’s debt. It is a fun setup, and the game places many mysteries in front of you from the get-go. Where is Sean’s father? Who is the black-robed figure that kidnapped the Noogies? What’s the deal with the Versal family, who are also exploring the caverns for the treasure? After each successful run in The Good Old Days, you will get a bit more information about the fallout of the adventure and a couple of answers to some of these lingering questions.
There is a good story hidden somewhere beneath The Good Old Days’ web of characters and environments. You can tell this is a deeply personal story with a lot of meaning for the solo developer behind it. There are moments of quiet reflection and sincere dialogue that genuinely work, and when the game allows these moments to breathe, they are effective. Unfortunately, having to replay the game over and over again with very little difference in each run only holds the story back from truly shining through. By having the map stay static through each run, you quickly get tired of seeing the same opening environments, which makes every subsequent playthrough feel increasingly tedious.
Thankfully, the game allows you to keep most of your items and major upgrades between runs, but this does little to address the larger issue of repetition. Instead of feeling motivated to uncover the next piece of the narrative, I often felt like I was simply going through the motions to reach the next story beat. I fully believe the developer should have dropped the roguelite elements of The Good Old Days and reworked the experience into a traditional Metroidvania with a stronger emphasis on storytelling. Not only would this have helped the pacing significantly, but it would have also allowed more focus to be placed on refining the platforming and core mechanics, which are sorely needed.
Bad Combat, Cumbersome Platforming
As you rescue each of Sean’s friends, you gain access to their unique abilities for that run. Foodie has a headbutt that can break walls or kill enemies, Bruce can roll and shoot tornadoes vertically while also being the fastest of the Noogies, and Doc can scan for hidden items and locations while also being able to jump higher than any other character. This seems like it would be fun to play around with, but once you have all four unlocked, it quickly becomes tiring to swap between them. Instead of assigning each member to a button or key to quickly swap on the fly, you are forced to scroll through each character one by one. This makes swapping characters feel clunky and unintuitive, especially during boss fights where quick reactions are essential.
The platforming itself is also lacking in polish. There were frequent moments where my jump inputs felt unresponsive, causing me to miss jumps or take unnecessary damage. Movement never quite feels precise, which is a major issue for a genre that relies so heavily on tight controls. Combat and boss encounters do little to redeem the experience. Each character technically has a distinct combat ability, but none of them feel particularly satisfying or effective. Sean’s bombs are difficult to control due to inconsistent physics, Foodie’s headbutt barely feels impactful, and Bruce’s tornadoes are severely limited by their vertical-only trajectory. Boss fights often feel more like endurance tests against awkward mechanics rather than meaningful challenges that reward you for beating them. I can’t stress enough how much the gameplay undermines the narrative. Time and time again, just as the story began to pull me back in, the game would trip over its own systems and break that immersion.
Forgive and Forget
The Good Old Days is a frustrating experience. On one hand, it tells an earnest and heartfelt story that clearly means a great deal to its creator. On the other hand, that story is wrapped in systems that actively detract from its emotional impact. If The Good Old Days had fully committed to being a traditional Metroidvania and abandoned its roguelite structure, the narrative would have had room to breathe and land with greater weight. I also believe this would have given the developer more time to smooth out the rough edges in the combat and platforming.
By the time I wrapped up my time with The Good Old Days, I found myself appreciating the story the game wanted to tell more than the game I actually played. There is something very meaningful buried here, but it is weighed down by repetition, awkward mechanics, and a lack of refinement that is difficult to overlook.
Disclaimer: GRAVITY provided a PC (Steam) copy of The Good Old Days for review purposes.
