2026 Special - Curse Crackers: For Whom the Belle Toils

Today's game is another mouthful. Curse Crackers: For Whom the Belle Toils follows the adventures of Belle, an acrobat living in a world of fantasy and mystery. This is a hop & bop-platformer with 25 stages, but anyone even dreaming about 100% completion will have to contend with 50. For the unaware, Colorgrave games start with a simple quest. In this case, Belle must rescue her boyfriend from Bonnie. Players who take the time to explore the world around them will discover just how rich with culture and history it is. Prior to the boyfriend-napping, there's an introduction that talks about the creation of the world and the battle that nearly ended it. Various characters throughout the town and elsewhere will bring up topics such as Knights, Mages, Titled and Subtitled. If one is willing to take the plunge, they'll discover that the lore runs extremely deep. To put it into perspective; the main story only takes up about 30% of the game. Without a doubt, this is a total win for anyone trying to make the most of their limited funds. However, the chance that they'll commit to finding the bottom of the rabbit hole depends on if they can stomach a wildly ambitious and lovely-looking adventure that's also a bit flawed.

Let's start off by discussing Belle. She's as a stunning talent in the world of acrobatics, and naturally the game gifts her with fantastic controls. Before anything else, be sure to enable the "sprint" command. It's just one keystroke or button-press away. This doubles her running speed, which takes a little getting used to but makes an enormous difference in all the platforming that follows. Now then, there are three jumps. The normal leap is the most common. Cross gaps and crack skulls with splendid maneuverability. High jumps offer extra verticality. Hard-to-reach ledges and oversized baddies are easy to deal with. Least common yet most satisfying is the sliding jump. Use it to cover long distances at high speeds, or to get across gaps where there are low ceilings. By the by, sliding is also good at bashing skellies. Enemies are liable to wear helmets or carry shields, so keep that offense mixed up. Movement is incredibly good. The varying jumps and ease in which they're all performed create a harmonious balance. Revisiting cleared stages to find secrets or collect medals is a great excuse to show off the full repertoire and dazzle through the danger. 

Belle's bestie is Chime; an enigmatic creature made of self-repairing metal. Yes, he's the perfect friend to throw at bad guys. Hurling is just as seamless as jumping, and Chime will cover long distances or rebound off of walls with ease. Belle can also bounce off of her bud to get some added height. Stylish players can pull off some neat tricks, but I figure everyone else can get by with the basics. It only takes one hit to smash a skull, which keeps the pacing nice and light. Chime is also required to solve button-pressing puzzles and bust through destructible objects. Speed is emphasized above all else though. Problems never take more than a second to solve. Curse Crackers is a very seamless game, never once betraying its Game Boy Color aesthetics with overcomplicated situations. 

A typical stage is divided into several sections, each a gauntlet that contains any combination of platforms, skellies, and obstacles. Checkpoints are quite frequent, so save the fretting over Belle's meager hit-points for the 100% completion route. Speaking of, there are a lot of secrets contained in the walls. Anyone with a tendency to press against anything suspicious will find quite a few valuables. The most devious collectibles often require edibles. By those, I mean the treats Chimes can munch on to change his form. All four are unlocked by progressing the story. If you need one for an otherwise unreachable secret, then you'll have to visit the bakery... often. 

Get used to visiting the bakery.

One of the game's more nitpicky qualities is that Chime's treats are only good for one use, and Belle can't fit more than one item in her pocket. I get that from a game-design perspective, having a large supply of goodies that enable flight or temporary invulnerability would break things, but there's always a middle-ground. If Belle uses a treat, but loses her life before grabbing the secret item, then she'll have to leave the stage and go back to the bakery. To their credit, stages almost never exceed two minutes, but all the same; time finds a way to add up. Also, even the guide-reliant players will find themselves replaying stages more often than they'd probably care to. There's so much to acquire, and the game ensures that it can never happen in a single trip. This is just me nitpicking though. Revisiting stages to grab a missing book or oath-sword isn't a huge ordeal. The books can be read for extra lore, and I bet something cool happens after enough swords are collected.

Treasure hunters bathe regularly.

My fondness for Curse Crackers doesn't really start to wane until the medal collecting. Several are tied to uncovering semi-secret areas or throwing Chime an exceptionally long distance, nothing strenuous. Time-medals, on the other hand, tend to be strict. A single death is usually enough to force a restart. Where it starts to get arduous is during boss battles, as the medal requirement will change to "no-damage". I think the bosses are fine when fought in a casual environment; not so much when Belle is an iffy hitbox away from another restart. The remixed bosses with their tougher patterns and obstacle-filled arenas could sear themselves to my soul if I allowed them the chance, but I won't. All-medals just isn't worth the cost to enjoyment.  

Replaying stages for speed and a modicum of perfection exposes the game's biggest fault: its propensity towards offscreen danger and death. Though the camera tries, it can't quite show all of Belle's surroundings nor keep up with her sudden bursts of speed. For most of the adventure, this actually isn't a huge problem. The path forward often provides acrobats plenty of room to strut their stuff. Level-design isn't intricate, but there's a lovely flow to it that's bolstered by the aforementioned movement. However, the optional stages really pile on the enemies and traps, creating problematic clutter. Fire-sneezing skellies and baseball cannons fire from outside the camera's view, but at least they're easy to predict. The most egregious of all are the spray-paint cans and crushing blocks. Cans bounce and fall, creating a projectile that can easily clip Belle from above. Depending on the structure of the current section, a crushing block could be sitting just out of sight, before making its presence known in a manner most horrific. One example that immediately comes to mind is found in the optional stage 4-5. Yeah, most of Curse Crackers struggles are tied to optional content. 

Colorgrave loves large and enigmatic ladies.

Altogether, I think this game sits in a rather strange place. A standard playthrough makes for a lovely little adventure. Taking the time to seek out a large portion of secrets and side-quests elevates the game quite a lot. Grinding out all the medals? Hunting down the most elusive collectibles? Attempting these tasks just brings the game down. I enjoyed Curse Crackers enough to give it two playthroughs: one at 51% completion and the other at 65%. I might've stopped short of the peak, but I'm also confident that anything past 75% is downhill. Still, this is an easy recommendation simply because it plays so darn well.