I ignored UFO 50's first game, but then Barbuta pulled me back in
Barbuta is slow, clunky, and completely impenetrable. And it's become my favorite UFO 50 game.
Your first experience with UFO 50 will almost certainly be being crushed by a giant falling block. This is because you'd have fired up Barbuta, the first chronological entry in this compilation of 50 imaginary — but faithful and incredibly well-crafted — retro games, and because a lifetime of side-scrolling adventures has trained you to go right first and expect nothing surprising to come from it.
It's a funny gag, placing a trap just pixels away from your starting location, albeit a slightly cruel one — and something you'd expect from more modern, purposely punishing platformers than a homage to an early 1980s adventure computer game. When combined with its labyrinth of rooms stretched out by sluggish momentum and cumbersome combat, and its sparse visuals and eerie lack of music, it gives a challenging first impression — and a guilt-free feeling that you're safe to drop this game and sample something a little more approachable instead.
