Every now and then a game crops up that serves as a reminder of how powerful it can be to break up a game in to short, challenging chunks. Those who have played games like N+ or Super Meat Boy will know what I'm talking about and while Twisted Fates by Leuvsion isn't as polished or as challenging as other titles, its unique style of platforming is served well by the bite-sized levels.

One thing that fails to escape notice is the cartoonish Manga-inspired visuals featuring well-endowed teenagers and quirky anthropomorphic characters that all feel a little too surreal. After being teleported to another dimension, the characters almost immediately brush off the bizarreness of their predicament and each set out to find their friends and to save the world they've landed in. Visually the game is interesting, if somewhat sterile and unrefined with its retro style, but the game's audio track does a great job of creating a grand setting for each zone.

What really hurts the gameplay is the strange choice of setting the game in a portrait orientation with classic platforming controls (left/right with a jump and attack button) and strange physics that make jumps feel like attempts at levitation as the girls smoothly glide up and down with no regard to gravity. Each of the three girls can level up as they fight enemies, earning new abilities in the process, however dying can come quite easily as the enemy AI is stubbornly pedantic about chasing your character even if a wall blocks it, making it all but impossible to avoid damage in many situations.

But this is where the bite-sized levels come in to play as each area can be a pain to deal with (especially if you're unlucky with the randomization), but completing each one only takes a matter of seconds, so dying is rarely a huge penalty.

Twisted Fates is ultimately a hard game to like, pairing odd visuals with a strange control scheme and quirky physics, but it's not afraid to mix things up, keeping the game interesting well beyond expectations; worth a shot if you're after a platformer that's out of the ordinary.