*One night in late October, the thread necromancer casts his dark magic, reviving a seven-month-old thread. This magic, through whatever governing deity that granted it, still managed to make the thread appropriate for the current age*
Okay, so I'm nearly two weeks late to the... party?.. but I only bought the game yesterday!
Overview
Since there aren't exactly a lot of artistic 2D games out there (a rant I can save for another time), I didn't really have a lot to compare this game to. Namely, it was Wario Land: Shake It!, and I had to keep reminding myself that the two are different games. If there's somthing one does that I like better than the other, it isn't necessarily good or bad.
The first major difference is that Blob has a loading screen at the transition between any two areas. While the stages for the most part are big, single-room areas, there are a few intermediate rooms with hidden treasures that, when entered, stick up a loading screen for about three seconds. The music starts over at each of these seams, so it looks a bit less polished than maybe it needs to be.
Like its older brothers, Blob has a one-hit-kill rule in that if the boy touches any enemies, environmental hazards or falls too far, he will die. However, the game has checkpoints every other footstep and unlimited lives, so sometimes it's worth it to jump in a hole just to see what's down there. Or raise up a big rock with the jack, stand under the rock, and recall the blob from its jack form... you know... just 'cause.
Graphics
A Boy and His Blob takes a simpler approach to graphics than Wario Land, though it isn't something I would have noticed had I not thoroughly enjoyed Wario Land. While Blob's environments are very well-done in their own right, they still seem to take pages out of books of game development past in some areas, such as a sort of all-encompassing "sky layer" and repeating terrain objects. Wario Land is unique in that every part of its level graphics were designed specifically for where they were used, and no one part is ever used twice. Blob, though only nominally noticeable, does reuse various elements and in some places would have done well to add in a unique object or two just to round it off.
Audio
The sound effects in Blob are gentle and somewhat comical, though not downright quirky like Wario Land. The boy does not speak unless calling the blob or screaming in terror, and many of the enemies are entirely silent. It's good for my tastes, as there's not a lot getting in the way of the game's musical soundtrack, which I'll get to in a moment. The main issue I have with the sound effects is that the blob uses the same "stepping" sounds as the boy, which is a hard "thock" on solid surfaces like wood or rock. A squishy blob should not go "thock."
The music... Ah, the music. It's a shame WayForward didn't have the budget for a real-live orchestra, because the composition quality of the musics in the game are on-par with those in Super Mario Galaxy. No joke. Take a listen and see for yourself:
Forest 2 - 3:39, 4.68MB
High quality MP3, so don't bog down my server too much:
<Embed Src="http://perfectkiosk.net/Audio/jw.swf" Width="320" Height="19" FlashVars="file=http://perfectkiosk.net/Audio/Forest2.mp3"></Embed>
Gameplay
The gameplay is effectively the same as the older titles. Move boy, find obstacle, feed blob jellybeans to bypass obstacle. In this game, though, the boy can jump short heights and distances, and throw the jellybeans across gaps or up to high platforms. The blob very faithfully keeps up, and in the event he gets stuck somewhere, you can just call for it three times and it'll turn into the balloon that the Berry jellybean is generally for, and it will return to you from wherever it is. The Tangerine trampoline sees a lot of use this time around, and some newcomers like the Pear parachute and Banana anvil add some more fun to the mix.
The game consists of four worlds with ten stages each, and each stage has three treasures that, when collected, unlock a challenge stage which, in turn when completed, unlock goodies like dev imagery and supposedly new game modes, though I haven't encountered any of those yet. I suspect the NES game is one of the unlockables. Anyhow, this makes for a total of 80 playable levels, and since they're all of reasonable length, it's the kind of game you can sit down and play for ten minutes while waiting for the pizza to cook.
Decision!
Suggested at a $35 price tag instead of the usual $50, I still ended up paying $40 for it at Best Buy. Even so, I'd say this game is worthy of a $50 price tag. It's not like Excite Truck, where $30 woulda been pushing it, and in fact I recommend it to anyone who likes traditional platforming and puzzle solving. And with the hug button, which serves no practical functionality whatsoever, the game falls into the category of one of the most charming as well. |
This looks a hundred times better than the NES original, now that it actually looks more intuitive, the visuals are amazingly cute and well drawn (it looks *exactly* like a tv cartoon. Spot on!), but more importantly, they fit with the atmosphere. I really hope this game lives up to how decent it's looking, because I'm really interested in getting it now. 
ANYWAYYYYY I am kind of excited about this...I had the Gameboy one and it was kind of fun...
