• Excellent platformer with a lot of history, soul, and style. Feels just the right amount of floaty with a lot of ability for expression through movement.
  
• Ridiculous amount of depth to movement, especially for something as simple as a game with only three buttons (left, right, jump).
  
• Many mechanics and enemies actually have some of their own depth too, even though on the surface they appear quite straightforward. Rockets are actually phenomenal and super interesting.
  
• Absurdly impressive amount of levels and stuff to do; 100%ing N++ is a difficult task, and takes most people around 800 hours minimum
  
• Episodes/levels are structured in a way that results in you always having something to do or to strive for. Along with community levels, if you want to play N++, you will always have something you can do at any skill level.
  
• The ability to not be able to do something no matter how hard you try, then come back much later after you've gotten better and nail it in a few attempts is a constant. few other games make me feel as good as I do when that happens
  
• Amazing soundtrack
  
• Tons of levels, customization, color palettes

• Songs do not have permanent license with the game, so at some point songs will be removed from the game in patches. This has already happened. You can downpatch to get the music back though.
  
• The soundtrack is also not for sale anywhere. If you want to buy the entire soundtrack, you'd have to go to multiple different Bandcamps and websites to purchase all the tracks (some of them are not even publicly available anymore btw). After all of that, you'd probably be down about $200. slsk is a good program!
  
• Secret challenges. Holy ♥♥♥♥, the intended system for these SUCKS. I'll just link this guide[gamefaqs.gamespot.com] because explaining it means the review hits the character limit. TL;DR, It's esoteric, annoying, absurdly difficult, and time-wasting. The actual challenges are fun (usually), but discovering them is not.
  
• Some levels/secret challenges are total misses. SU-X-02-04 "losing ground" is one solid example; it's 60 seconds of nothing and then the actual hard part. "temerity" G--T++ is 60 seconds of pure waiting.
  
• Episodes sometime seem randomly scattered around without much thought for difficulty and progression.

• There is NO ingrained online multiplayer. The only multiplayer you can do is Steam Remote Play which means that your friend's save does not progress while yours does. So in order for a Co-Op pair to fully complete N++ on their respective machines, you MUST do all of Co-Op TWICE (which is a monumental task). There is also a Race mode which was built around multiplayer, which has the same issue. Thankfully, you can complete this solo but it takes all of the fun out of the mode. It's best to do this with multiple friends but... good luck with that.
  
• Community is hit or miss. To complete Co-Op, you're basically required to join the official Discord to find another player to play with, and even then you have to find someone who's willing to progress on YOUR save file AND who is also in a region close enough to you to not cause significant input delay. As time passes, this just becomes harder and harder of a task.
  
• On a related note, the Official Discord community can be quite awful. I've seen some of the 100%ers tell minors to kill themselves while mods don't give a ♥♥♥♥. Multiple users made fun of a 14y/o kid who used emojis in his messages "too often". There's this one extremely self-hating dude named Renard who made it his life's mission to annoy and harass me (spoiler alert: he just hated himself so he lashed out at a stranger). Some people are just straight up strange. It's something you don't want to actively involve yourself in; if you're looking for a sense of community, go literally anywhere else. I'm not going to say there AREN'T nice people there (there were a couple of nice people I enjoyed talking to, s/o Emmoji, Doc, xela, Nova, and eyre), but it's the best of a bad bunch.

• Cannot bind multiple keys to one action. This is important for some late game mashing that is required for certain secret challenges.
  
• No option to save all successful replays. Which is really lame. Incredibly useful since you might wanna replay a successful secret challenge attempt but your all-gold run overrides it because it's technically a better score and therefore doesn't save.
  
• No option to replay your latest death.

• Saves have a tendency to corrupt. Saves tend to not work with the Steam Cloud, and it's recommended to keep the Cloud off. You need to keep manual backups, as your save can corrupt for no reason at any time. The game does not keep backups for you. In 348 hours, it hasn't happened to me, but it could at any moment.
  
• Your dead body colliding with enemies can destroy your ears because parts can become stuck inside of enemies.
  
• Can't view replays during an episode. Apparently, you weren't supposed to be able to view a replay of a level before you beat the episode either (which you can). I really don't like this, because you either view the replay for a level you can't figure out or you just look it up on YouTube. The extra intended barrier just does not seem appealing from a player's standpoint.
  
• Profile menu has a bug where it won't display progress correctly.
  
• Issues displaying on certain high resolutions
  
• Game will display sharper on certain languages (German is sharper compared to English)
  
• Replays are 5.5% slower than actual gameplay. I experienced this odd bug when I tried to make a video syncing a replay with a game recording's audio.
  
• Extremely loud on first launch (as in, when you first install the game)

This game is phenomenal. I know it sounds like I hate it, but I really just hate aspects of it. I wouldn't have put 350 hours into something that I didn't enjoy. N++ is a great game, but it makes a couple decisions that have me scratching my head trying to wonder what they were thinking at points. It's got a couple of really screwed up and strange bugs, a mostly ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up community, and a serious lack of some QoL features.
But it's a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ fantastic platformer. There is truly nothing else like it. It captures such a delicious style and vibe that other platformers don't really go for. This game is absolutely in a league of its own, and it's dominating.

Buy on sale.[isthereanydeal.com]

Here's hoping for open source release in 2025.

[h1]N++ is one of the best platformers ever that suffers from a lack of polish, funding, and a few major poor design choices.[/h1] [h2]Pros[/h2] [list] [*] Excellent platformer with a lot of history, soul, and style. Feels just the right amount of floaty with a lot of ability for expression through movement. [*] Ridiculous amount of depth to movement, especially for something as simple as a game with only three buttons (left, right, jump). [*] Many mechanics and enemies actually have some of their own depth too, even though on the surface they appear quite straightforward. Rockets are actually phenomenal and super interesting. [*] Absurdly impressive amount of levels and stuff to do; 100%ing N++ is a difficult task, and takes most people around 800 hours minimum [*] Episodes/levels are structured in a way that results in you always having something to do or to strive for. Along with community levels, if you want to play N++, you will always have something you can do at any skill level. [*] The ability to not be able to do something no matter how hard you try, then come back much later after you've gotten better and nail it in a few attempts is a constant. few other games make me feel as good as I do when that happens [*] Amazing soundtrack [*] Tons of levels, customization, color palettes [/list] [h2]Cons[/h2] [h3]General[/h3] [list] [*] Songs do not have permanent license with the game, so at some point songs will be removed from the game in patches. This has already happened. [url=https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2990677762]You can downpatch to get the music back though.[/url] [*] The soundtrack is also not for sale anywhere. If you want to buy the entire soundtrack, you'd have to go to multiple different Bandcamps and websites to purchase all the tracks (some of them are not even publicly available anymore btw). After all of that, you'd probably be down about $200. [spoiler]slsk is a good program![/spoiler] [*] [b]Secret challenges[/b]. Holy fuck, the intended system for these SUCKS. I'll just link [url=https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/pc/186604-n-plus-plus/faqs/76503]this guide[/url] because explaining it means the review hits the character limit. TL;DR, It's esoteric, annoying, absurdly difficult, and time-wasting. The actual challenges are fun (usually), but discovering them is not. [*] Some levels/secret challenges are total misses. SU-X-02-04 "losing ground" is one solid example; it's 60 seconds of nothing and then the actual hard part. [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbtEJ2Ckxw4]"temerity" G--T++ is 60 seconds of pure waiting.[/url] [*] Episodes sometime seem randomly scattered around without much thought for difficulty and progression. [/list] [h3]Multiplayer[/h3] [list] [*] There is NO ingrained online multiplayer. The only multiplayer you can do is Steam Remote Play which means that your friend's save does not progress while yours does. [b]So in order for a Co-Op pair to fully complete N++ on their respective machines, you MUST do all of Co-Op TWICE[/b] (which is a monumental task). There is also a Race mode which was built around multiplayer, which has the same issue. Thankfully, you can complete this solo but it takes all of the fun out of the mode. It's best to do this with multiple friends but... good luck with that. [*] Community is hit or miss. To complete Co-Op, you're basically required to join the official Discord to find another player to play with, and even then you have to find someone who's willing to progress on YOUR save file AND who is also in a region close enough to you to not cause significant input delay. As time passes, this just becomes harder and harder of a task. [*] On a related note, the Official Discord community can be quite awful. I've seen some of the 100%ers tell minors to kill themselves while mods don't give a shit. Multiple users made fun of a 14y/o kid who used emojis in his messages "too often". There's this one extremely self-hating dude named Renard who made it his life's mission to annoy and harass me (spoiler alert: he just hated himself so he lashed out at a stranger). Some people are just straight up [i]strange[/i]. It's something you don't want to actively involve yourself in; if you're looking for a sense of community, go literally anywhere else. I'm not going to say there AREN'T nice people there (there were a couple of nice people I enjoyed talking to, s/o Emmoji, Doc, xela, Nova, and eyre), but it's the best of a bad bunch. [/list] [h3]QoL[/h3] [list] [*] Cannot bind multiple keys to one action. This is important for some late game mashing that is required for certain secret challenges. [*] No option to save all successful replays. Which is really lame. Incredibly useful since you might wanna replay a successful secret challenge attempt but your all-gold run overrides it because it's technically a better score and therefore doesn't save. [*] No option to replay your latest death. [/list] [h3]Bugs[/h3] [list] [*] [url=https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1821198112]Saves have a tendency to corrupt.[/url] Saves tend to not work with the Steam Cloud, and it's recommended to keep the Cloud off. You need to keep manual backups, as your save can corrupt for no reason at any time. The game does not keep backups for you. In 348 hours, it hasn't happened to me, but it could at any moment. [*] [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nuKuqh7b3M]Your dead body colliding with enemies can destroy your ears because parts can become stuck inside of enemies.[/url] [*] Can't view replays during an episode. Apparently, you weren't supposed to be able to view a replay of a level before you beat the episode either (which you can). I really don't like this, because you either view the replay for a level you can't figure out or you just look it up on YouTube. The extra intended barrier just does not seem appealing from a player's standpoint. [*] Profile menu has a bug where it won't display progress correctly. [*] [url=https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2566075839]Issues displaying on certain high resolutions[/url] [*] [url=https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3266759653]Game will display sharper on certain languages[/url] (German is sharper compared to English) [*] Replays are 5.5% slower than actual gameplay. I experienced this odd bug when I tried to make a video syncing a replay with a game recording's audio. [*] Extremely loud on first launch (as in, when you first install the game) [/list] [h2]Conclusion[/h2] This game is phenomenal. I know it sounds like I hate it, but I really just hate aspects of it. I wouldn't have put 350 hours into something that I didn't enjoy. N++ is a great game, but it makes a couple decisions that have me scratching my head trying to wonder what they were thinking at points. It's got a couple of really screwed up and strange bugs, a mostly fucked up community, and a serious lack of some QoL features. But it's a fucking fantastic platformer. There is truly nothing else like it. It captures such a delicious style and vibe that other platformers don't really go for. This game is absolutely in a league of its own, and it's dominating. [url=https://isthereanydeal.com/game/nplusplus/info/]Buy on sale.[/url] Here's hoping for open source release in 2025.