Developed by the Brazilian solo developer Marcelo Barbosa, Tcheco in the Castle of Lucio is a retro 2D platformer released in 2015 for PCs. Now, five years later, the game has been brought to consoles by the Italian studio Fantastico Studio allowing more players to get in touch with the Adventure Boy!
Tcheco in the Castle of Lucio – or just TCL, for short – is an old school platformer with an 8-bits aesthetic where you will guide our hero Tcheco through a challenging non-stop adventure where you will venture in levels full of jokes and memories from my childhood. It’s a pity that only who lived in Brazil in the ’90s will get most of its references. The gameplay is quite simple: you must collect all keys on the screen before proceeding to the next level. Simple, but challenging: in classic mode, you have only a few lives to complete all the 65 levels of the game – and this is not an easy task. Thankfully, there is an ‘easy mode’ (conveniently called ‘try harder mode’) that will allow lowly mortals like myself to complete the game (and get those sweet 1000G).
Even considering the retro aesthetic of the game, visually speaking, the game does not impress. It has a lot of colored (but odd) scenarios, full of traps and enemies. Animations are simple and enemies are just interesting – including the bosses. The audio is also very modest, but very pleasant, with a single track that plays on a loop during all the game. Sound effects reminded me of games from the Master System, which I loved!
One of the most interesting things about the title is all the references to other games and other media it has: Monica no Castelo do Dragão (which you may know as Wonder Boy in Monster Land outside Brazil), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, International Superstar Soccer, Donkey Kong and many others. Part of the fun while reviewing this game was trying to identify all of them.
Score: 64%
Tcheco in the Castle of Lucio is a short but interesting title. Full of great ideas and cameos references from other media and titles. Its gameplay is very simple, as much as the art and audio of the game. Nevertheless, fun to try and increase your Gamerscore. Congratulations to Marcelo Barbosa, my fellow Brazilian gamer! Looking forward to trying your next game!
With a history of gaming that goes from his old man’s Atari 2600 to his Xbox One, Rafael or RAF687, our Brazilian editor, has a love for games as old as he can remember. He has already spent countless hours in many consoles (Mega Drive/Genesis, Sega Saturn, PS1, PS2 and Xbox 360) and is always ready for more (as long as his wife is asleep). Raf has been writing for LifeisXbox since 2017, with a passion for games of almost all genres – though we know he has a special place in his heart for RPGs, racing games and anything that includes pixel art. Writing about games has always been a childhood dream to Raf, dream that he has fulfilled reviewing games for you here. You can drop him a message at Twitter, Facebook or Xbox Live at any time.
