Noitu Love has all the makings of a cool platformer. Punching your way through a bunch of evil robots, with transformation abilities based on evolution. What starts out as a simple enough effort is marred by some pretty frustrating design choices.

The game starts out with the player (Noitu Love) as they punch their way through various segments. There's a jump key, attack key, and combination flip attack. It's alright at first, but even over 6 stages it gets a little boring. The evolution abilities are slightly more interesting, with monkeys that jump high, geniuses that activate consoles, and a bird that flaps by tapping the jump key.

As for graphics and music, the creator definitely wanted to channel some 8-bit feeling, right up to the Game Boy inspired tracks, but it feels like an uncomfortable interim between actual 8-bit graphics and more complex sprite art.

The real problem, though, is the difficulty spike. The game has a set of lives that the player uses, and has to start over at a stage with only two lives if they game over. This is alright, had the final boss been not such a tremendously frustrating pain. We're talking randomness that keeps the player from making the right moves and almost always dying, along with attacks that can't be avoided. Given that most of the game is an alright challenge, the final stage really knocks this game down from a three to a two out of five. Good thing it's free.