Chariot is a couch co-op title that is perfectly comfortable being what it is. It doesn’t try to do anything overly new or groundbreaking for the platformer genre; it doesn’t introduce some new physics device. It is a simply a platformer that is meant to be played and enjoyed with a friend.
When your father passes from this mortal coil, it is up to you, his only daughter, to lay the old man to rest in a place that is suitable for a king to find his everlasting peace. Of course, this is not the first, second, or even third place you come across. You’ll be dragging, pushing, and riding on top of dear old dad’s coffin all over the catacombs of the kingdom until the appropriate sepulcher can be found. If you’re lucky, maybe you can even convince your fiancee to come along for some help.
In order to navigate through those catacombs, you and your co-op partner will have to rely upon gravity, a little bit of muscle, and your trusty ropes. The king’s coffin - or chariot - can be pushed along the ground, up small steps, and along special platforms that only the chariot can ride along known as “dead rails.” The ropes, which are toggled on and off while pressing the appropriate button, allow players to pull the chariot (and any players that may be hanging on to it) up ledges too big to go up normally, or pull it up to a higher ledge from the ground.
Players can also use the ropes to let the chariot hang freely off the side of a ledge, which allows the other player to freely swing from the other end of it. There are more ways to interact with this inanimate object than one would think is possible from the initial stages, and creative thinking and application of those ways are definitely required in order to get past some of the more challenging scenarios.
The typical level will see you and your co-op partner figuring out how to navigate over, around, and through a series of ledges, ramps, and cliffs as you make your way to the exit. Along the way, you’ll be collecting whatever treasure you can find as well as collectible items like skulls and useful blueprints. Those blueprints can be handed over to a skeletal merchant in between levels. He’ll convert them into useful gadgets that can either be equipped by the heroes, or get attached directly to the chariot for the purposes of overall level progression. The hero gadgets vary greatly in usage and can either provide a direct benefit to a player, e.g., boosting his/her speed temporarily, or allow them to go about approaching the game’s puzzles from a different angle.
For instance, one gadget allows a player to affix their end of the rope to a wall/floor/ceiling. That last option is the key part to this gadget, as being able to create a fixed point from which the chariot hangs creates a grapple point that players can use to cross from one side of a pit to another. This particularly came in handy while attempting to solve one of the game’s many co-op puzzles. These areas are entirely optional and need not be completed at all in order to beat the game, but they add a great deal of challenge for the co-op team looking to see and do it all.
Physics-based puzzle platformers can be a very tricky game type to get down. If the physics are too loose, or too realistic, players find themselves battling those mechanics more than they find themselves just playing and enjoying the game. Chariot, for the most part, uses its physics in a way that is predictable and fun; it feels like it has an appropriate weight, which is key when it comes to figuring out how to get up a particular ledge and down another.
In one of those co-op areas, my co-op partner and I had to traverse across three small ledges in order to carefully manipulate the chariot in between two of them in such a way that it would attract a nearby gem into it (just to get more treasure). After some trial and error, I was able to swing from the chariot onto the second ledge, but the chariot was hanging off the wrong side of the ledge and my co-op partner still had to get to the third ledge. She eventually realized that if she hung off one side of the chariot while I pulled it up onto the ledge and I went off the correct side, we could get the chariot in the correct position and I could then try to swing from the chariot to the 3rd ledge (something I was better at doing). These co-op areas really highlight the physics-based puzzle elements of the game while at the same time showing off how the cooperative nature of the game.
Up until this point, I’ve been talking about the game in strictly co-op terms for a reason: that’s how the game feels like it should be played. The puzzles and challenges in the levels can be tackled alone, albeit with perhaps a little more difficulty than with another player (sometimes literally) in tow, and none of the key parts of the game, like the blueprints or exits, are walled off behind a “co-op only” section. One person can play through the game by his or herself, but they’d be missing out on a good portion of the fun. Dragging a dead guy’s coffin through a bunch of levels on your own can get tedious, but doing it with a friend becomes an adventure. The constant communication between you and your co-op partner as you figure out where to go and how to get there brings the game to life. There’s even an in-game high five button!
I love this game. From the art style to the gameplay, my time so far with it has always been a joy. While some of the puzzles may be tougher than others and require a little more skill from one player or another, the game feels like it can be approached by players of all skill types and ages. It is the kind of couch co-op game where you will lose an afternoon to a few frustrations, many high-fives, and a lot of laughter. In other words, Chariot is what co-op gaming is all about.
The Co-Optimus review of Chariot is based on the PS4 version of the game. A game code was provided by the developer for review purposes.