Guacamelee! is one of those odd combinations that really shouldn’t work. A luchador-themed Metroidvania with lots of referential humor, an art style inspired by Mexican culture, and dimension-swapping mechanics similar to 2011’s Outland. It sounds like a mish-mash of ideas, and it occasionally it is, but more often than not, Guacamelee! is an incredibly well-executed game (with an absurdly amazing title, I might add).

Guacamelee! tells the story of Juan Aguacate, an agave farmer in a relationship with El Presidente’s daughter. Just before the annual Dia de los Muertos party, El Presidente’s daughter is kidnapped by an undead Charro named Carlos Calaca, and Juan is killed trying to save her.

This is not the end for Juan, however. He was sent to the Land of the Dead, where he receives a special luchador mask that brings him back to the Land of the Living and bestows him with incredible power. After that, he saves his hometown and sets off to defeat Calaca and save his girlfriend.

The game primarily consists of two gameplay elements: combat and exploration. In combat, Juan uses his new found roster of luchador moves to punch, pile drive, suplex, toss, uppercut, and headbutt every last one of Calaca’s minions.

You don’t start with all of those abilities, though, and Juan’s progressive acquisition of new moves is satisfying and keeps the game’s pacing feeling tight. The combat takes some time to feel smooth and enjoyable, but the end result is a fluid system that makes you feel like a super-powered luchador.

Exploration, on the other hand, is how Juan obtains new moves and extends his health bar and ability meter. The game’s world is very cleverly designed, as it doesn’t force you to find every last upgrade to be able to stand up to Calaca, but I was absorbed enough into the world that I just wanted to find everything.

It follows the Metroidvania style of design, where the world is initially not very open to you, but as you gain abilities (such as turning into a chicken, which functions similarly to Samus’ morphball from the Metroid series), you gain access to more and more of the world, allowing you to discover everything it has hidden from you.

Some of the moves Juan learns are most useful for exploration, such as the wall jump and the double jump, but some of his attacks, like the headbutt and long punch, can be used to increase his ability to maneuver.

Some platforming segments require every one of these moves; wall jump to get some height, double jump to increase distance, long punch to get just under the last platform, and uppercut to finally get to it. It’s very satisfying to pull off some of the game’s harder platforming moments, and because you don’t take fall damage, it never discourages you from making an attempt.

The final game play element is the interplay between the Land of the Living and the Land of the Dead. The visual palette changes, and certain platforms, walls, and even enemies only exist in one world of the other.

At first, Juan must enter portals to switch between worlds, but around halfway through he gains the ability swap independently. This dynamic is one of the most interesting parts of the game, and it keeps things fresh throughout.

What sets Guacamelee! apart most is the colorful, vibrant art direction. The traditional style of Dia de los Muertos decorations has been translated into the game’s world in such a reverent way that it’s hard not to love. The palette shift between the Land of the Living and the Land of the Dead is a nice shift and makes sure no area can really get visually stale.

The soundtrack is great, too, with some Latino classical guitar arrangements mixed with light chiptune elements to create a varied soundscape. This is another element that changes between the game’s two worlds; the music in the Land of the Living is more pronounced and cheery, while in the Land of the Dead it’s distorted and strange.

The game’s sense of humor is also fairly interesting. The world of Guacamelee! is on filled to the brim with references to classic game franchises, Internet memes, and some gaming news sites like Destructoid and Giantbomb, while its dialogue feels very different from that, not relying on allusions but its own quirky characters and themes. My personal favorite thing is every time you break a Choozo statue (a very transparent Metroid reference), a sage that transforms into a goat walks up to you and scolds you for wrecking all of his stuff.

One of my few gripes is that near the end of the game, in the optional content that leads to the last set of secret items, the game gets Super Meat Boy-hard without the perfectly precise controls of “Super Meat Boy” to compensate. It’s not necessary to play through this content to finish the game, but for those of you aiming towards 100%-ing Guacamelee!, you’ve been warned.

Guacamelee! is a refreshing, inventive game, and for all that it uses from the past, it does a number of things we don’t see often in games. It may not last you an incredibly long time, but none of that time will be wasted.