Pure Nintendo: "I did get some entertainment when playing this game with friends, alternating levels, and chuckling about its dated aspects. However Xavier is simply too generic for its own good. With no ambition, excelling at the basics is an absolute must – this game fails to do that. There’s no shortage of good side scrollers on Wii U, so even those who enjoy simpler platformers have little incentive with forgettable titles like this. For them I’d suggest waiting for a discount. Even at just $5, the content (though plentiful) isn’t engaging enough. Everyone else can pass without much worry, and hope perhaps a sequel will improve things."
NLife:
"In the world of platformers, the name of the game is control. That is to say, nothing speaks to a platform game's quality quite like the level of control the player feels they have over their character. Of course, control alone does not guarantee a successful product — creative level design that makes intuitive use of the mechanics is really what sells a platformer in the end. Unfortunately, you'll find neither reliable control nor creative level design in Prison Lab's Xavier. It flubs the most basic elements that Shigeru Miyamoto and his team perfected nearly thirty years ago in Super Mario Bros., and what begins as a downright unpleasant experience ends up as a psychological endurance test — the repetitive graphics, uninspired audio presentation, incompetent controls and poor level design will really test your ability to keep the game on for a sustained period."
