Wings of Vi is masacore platforming done right.

The gameplay challenges ramp up at a good pace, you slowly get more movement options and the game really makes you get the most out of them as it you progress. The bosses similarly are frustrating at first, but so rewarding when you manage to defeat them. Even moreso if you beat them without getting hit even once!

Unlike some games, there's no 'gotcha!' elements. Apples falling upwards or sudden attacks from off-screen you need to die to in order to predict them. Even longer sections of the game let you preview what's coming up so you can plan for how you're going to tackle each challenge.

There's a nice bit of non-linearity to the game, too. Lots of hidden treasures are off the beaten path and some sections of the game can be completed in any order the player chooses. There's no real backtracking, though you eventually can get an item that will allow you to return to previous sections of the game with access only to the abilities you had gained at that time.

The difficulty selector is well done, with extra checkpoints or platforms at the easier difficulties. The easiest difficulty has so much of this though that even the worst gamer should be able to brute force their way to the end! Not that I would recommend this sort of the game to someone who wasn't into a tough challenge. It makes that difficulty setting's existance seem a bit odd.

Wings of Vi isn't absolutely perfect, though. The biggest problem I had was an early vertical auto-scroll section where the player's hitbox did not seem to conform to the area the player's sprite took up and would seeming hit or miss obstacles in the same area without rhyme or reason. More minorly there was one instance of being confused on where to go due to wondering if I needed to find some upgrade to pass a certain platforming challenge or if I was missing some puzzle element and while the bosses for the most part do a pretty good job of giving enough feedback to let you learn their patterns, the ability to use a stage element to stop one boss from doing an unavoidable attack eluded me for the longest time.

All in all, while there's a ton of features, a variety of gameplay and the character dressup is fun to collect and mix parts for, the most important part of a masacore game is how it plays and the level design and Wings of Vi absolutely nails these. If you're into platformers that give you a difficult challenge then you absolutely should pick this up.