There are two elements to PID that make it really stand out from the crowed. On one side of the coin we have a game that's dripping with distinct and fine tuned visual and audio style. Every last element of the games art design and audio is fine tuned.
If you want a better idea of the visual style try to imagine what a charlie brown game would look like, if directed by Wes Anderson, oh and charlie is a space school boy.
Hints of cool retro style comes together with surreal and interesting storytelling right next to a jazzy soundtrack and charming character design.
PID is set in a world of it's own and that world is very strong indeed.
On the other side of the coin there's the game difficulty and mechanical design. The game is often unfairly hard and when you die or fail a section its nearly always the effect of design and not your lack of ability to manipulate the game.
The lead character Kurt has been dropped off at the wrong stop on the way home from school and now must find his way home. He very quickly stumbles upon a special orb that allows him to create two "anti-gravity* light beams or repulsion beams if you will on most any surface.
Using one or both of the available beams at once your able to generate new pathways through the world. They allow you to find experimental and new ways to navigate past traps and enemies. This puzzle solution style gravity manipulation is always interesting and makes you feel very powerful.
The real difficulty issue comes from the lack of manipulative control you have over Kurt for the general platforming. Jumps fall short more often than not, he drifts awkwardly through the air when he does jump or fall and his movement feels slow and floaty.
This wouldn't be so much of an issue if the game was all about puzzles requiring path creation and inventive navigation. Often though the game will give you situations where enemy placement and trap locations are nearly impossible to avoid.
Even more of an issue are the boss encounters that both feel entirely against both the games style and design.
The times you do take on a more difficult over sized enemy are jarring. They very easily disrupt the narrative and temporal flow of the entire game.
One actually seems entirely pot luck when it comes to progression with multiple projectiles and smaller enemies appearing on the stage often entirely out of view. If you have a stage boss that requires the player to fly nearly uncontrollably through the air having dangers below that you cant see in advance is a terrible and crewel design choice.
The difficulty is made all the worse by the extreme punishment you face constantly. one hit kills you, lights set off alarms and get you in instant trouble.
There's plenty of moments where the games ideas and mechanics shine through like a joyous sun but the disruptive level difficulty and cumbersome platforming distract too much from what is a totally likeable game and that's a tragedy.