Review – Downward Enhanced

Caracal Games, Downward Enhanced Edition, gaming, Nintendo, PC, playstation, Plug in Digital, review, xbox

Caracal Games originally released Downward in 2017, since then it has had some major updates, and in June 2024 it was rebranded as Downward Enhanced and released on all major platforms.

Downward Enhanced Edition is set after the fall of mankind. You wake up from a nasty fall in the ruins of an unnamed city and your goal is to seek out knowledge that led to the destruction of humanity.

Downward Enhanced Edition is a first-person platformer with parkour traversal not unlike Mirrors Edge. The controls are very well thought out. I am playing on Xbox so your RT is jump, you can hold it to grab onto ledges or wall run. There is a dash linked to the Right Stick. There is no sprint, but there is a quick 180 degree turn that I never used.

Downward Enhanced Edition gives you the use of a ‘mark’, which I can only describe as your own personal checkpoint. As you are exploring you can put down a ‘mark’. If you fall or go the wrong way you can quickly travel back to where your mark was placed at the press of a button. This is where it got a little annoying. The ‘mark’ is dropped with ‘A’, and you teleport back to your ‘mark’ with LB. There is no way of getting rid of the ‘mark’ except by placing another. So I would be progressing up some precarious jumping bit, make it to the top and accidently teleport back to the bottom with the press of the wrong button. There are certain areas that can’t be accessed until you acquire the correct abilities that are locked behind story progression.

Combat seems a little forced, with no attack you are waiting for a slam that may never come

There is no combat, well not really. There are enemies, you just don’t fight them. They have 2 attacks, a swing and a slam. When they slam their weak points will glow and you must interact with them to defeat the enemy. A lot of the time they wouldn’t do their slam attack and you just have to run off and come back. The combat doesn’t fit the rest of the mechanics.

There are Skypieces scattered around the map, can you find them all

Scattered throughout the map are glowing orbs called Skypieces, these act as XP and can be spent on upgrading your health and energy. I will say they scream “come and collect me” and boy did I, I would get sidetracked all the time trying to figure out how to get up to that one Skypiece all the way at the top. Im not sure if they all respawn, some of them did while others didnt.

Downward Enhanced Edition is gorgeous and I didn’t run into any performance issues. It has 4 separate areas for you to explore, each with very different environments. From inside volcanoes dodging lava pits to trudging through snow covered landscapes. Each area has lots of hidden paths and areas to find and explore. There are several forms of collectables ranging from relics which can be sold to a merchant for Skypieces to bones that you can build your own skeleton with.

Downward Enhanced Edition was brilliant fun, and it took me roughly 4 hours to complete the main story, plus several hours of exploring and I did not find it all. There are also Challenges that can be attempted from both the main menu and by finding the challenge rings in the different levels. You are rewarded with Skypieces for completing them. Keep in mind they are very challenging. You will have to master the abilities and parkour mechanics to get gold. Some of them I could barely finish in time to get the Bronze medal. There was a weird base building part that felt very out of place. I went to the area once, built some things, left and never returned.

I had a great time with Downward Enhanced Edition, and for the price of $10 it is well worth a play. The story wasn’t super interesting, but the level design and traversal made nailing those prefect runs very satisfying.