 Steam Drunk TeslaGrad is an inventive platformer both in terms of gameplay and storytelling. The first thing that stands out about this game is that it wastes no time, you're immediately taken from the menu screen straight into the story and within seconds you're thrust into a gorgeous rainy landscape hopping across rooftops as you get chased by this angry guard guy. There are many things that make TeslaGrad unique but the first thing that stands out is how the story is told, there's no voice acting, no dialogue at all. There's still cutscenes so to speak, but to be honest I didn't mind, in fact I kind of looked forward to seeing them because I was always curious to see exactly how the game was going to get its point across without words and it consistently does a great job throughout. And that's in large part to the visuals and music. The visual style here is certainly reminiscent of other 2D platformers but there's no other game that looks quite like TeslaGrad. I'm partial to it of course because I feel like it would translate very nicely to a 16-bit Super Nintendo cartridge. Each section of the game has a distinctive look whether it be the intro sequence, this level here, or this section here. The bosses are creepy and definitely memorable. Easily the best part of TeslaGrad however is the core gameplay, it essentially uses the basic principles of electricity to solve puzzles, charging objects with a positive or negative charge, blue being positive and red being negative. You work these forces together or against each other to manipulate your surroundings, sometimes even charging yourself, in order to reach the next area and progress with the game. You can kind of teleport ahead a certain distance and I love this, it reminds me of the mid-air dash from Mega Man X2. I love how creative and inventive the mechanics are here but even better, I love that the game essentially just throws you into the fire. It's up to you to figure out how everything works, no dumb down nonsense, no fairies yelling at you to listen, no words at all, just dick around until you can figure it out. Why can't more games be like that? The puzzles and overall level design do a great job matching and complimenting the game's mechanics but I will say this game does have a bit of backtracking. That can get kind of old and a little time consuming, that's only because I want to keep progressing with the game. But yeah, TeslaGrat is creative and inventive gameplay matched with streamlined storytelling done in a completely different way. Have I raved about this game enough yet? Seriously, it's really good. And it's one of my all-time favorites in my Steam library. You can check it out there or in the Wii U eShop or the PlayStation Network if you happen to be in Europe or Japan. Highest recommendation for TeslaGrat.