Yes, I am going to pump up Rinry’s latest video as much as I can. She does fantastic work, and I want to make sure she gets plenty of attention for it. I know from personal experience that videos like these are no easy task. It’s not just a few hours and you’re done…it can take weeks!
The same goes for reviews, which deserve a great deal of time dedicated to the game that’s being critiqued. D3stiny_Sm4sher has another review for you all, and it’s my pleasure to share this one, as it is with all the others.
More reviews, new video features, and the news as usual. I really hope you guys enjoy your time at GoNintendo. I can’t tell you how much we all enjoy having you hear. It’s our pleasure to create content and report news that keeps you guys interested! For such a nice group of people, it’s the least we can do. See you in a few, short hours, my friends.
Hello yello. Time for another review. I know a bunch of you wanted to see me review ExciteBike: World Rally this week — which I DID download and got to play with some of you guys — but RMC decreed that Boy and His Blob deserved some attention first. Honestly, I have to agree with him, having played the game. This title really deserves more attention, which is what I’m gonna give it right now. As always, please leave thoughts, and please check back because I DO read (and try to reply to) every comment you guys leave. As for what to expect next week? Can’t say for sure, but it’s looking to be either ExciteBike or Mario and Sonic at the Winter Olympics. New Super Mario Bros. Wii will hopefully be hitting you the week after that. Enjoy the review, and please check this game out, I’m sure glad I did. It’s totally getting the shaft and it deserves better.
A Boy and His Blob
-It Came From Outer Space-
Time Played: About 10 hours
Completion: Completed all main levels, played some of the bonus levels
Control Scheme: Wiimote and Nunchuk combo
Other Conditions: Have NOT played the original NES Boy and His Blob
Note: I was still missing a lot of the game’s extra content
-Beans, Beans, the Magical Fruit-
The Wii has been a good platform for 2D titles lately, as developers embrace the processing power for hand drawn art rather than the 3D standard. Wario Land: Shake It! and Muramasa: The Demon Blade look fantastic, and A Boy and His Blob joins them as a delightfully detailed and smoothly animated game. Fortunately, there’s a lot more to the game than sugar-coated visuals and a dedicated “Hug” button.
A Boy and His Blob has very minimal storytelling: a nameless Boy who lives alone in a treehouse sees a meteor crashland into the woods behind his house. When he goes to investigate, he meets an odd, white little Blob and adopts the creature as his pet. Luckily for the Boy, the Blob can transform into all kinds of contextually useful objects upon consuming different flavors of jellybeans. So, Boy meets Blob, Blob follows Boy, Boy forces Blob to do his dirty work, Boy helps Blob save other Blobs. There are a couple of genuinely adorable scenes but overall there’s not really a story here. The dynamic-duo idea has been done over and over, but it’s nice to see a deliberately puzzle-oriented take on the concept in a 2D plane. One of the game’s strengths is that it streamlines this mechanic. The controls are fluid, jellybeans never run out, and it’s usually easy to get the Blob to come back to you if he strays (just call him three times if you can’t locate him). Blob can turn into all kinds of objects, from a ladder to a trampoline to a giant hamster ball to a rocket and even some pretty unexpected but intriguing items. Of course, just as you start to rely on one object, the game will take it away from you for the next level and give you a new one. Each level has its own powers to make use of, meaning that with each stage comes a new way to combine powers or utilize one in a way you haven’t before.
One of the game’s main flaws is that it can hold players’ hands way too much, even later on in the game. Giant wooden signs literally illustrate what powers to use at what points far more often than I would have liked. Now, this isn’t to say the game is too easy; as a matter of fact, it’s far from it if you aim to reach 100% completion. The game chooses an excellent way to tackle difficulty. Getting through the game’s main four “worlds” isn’t too taxing, but is enjoyable and engaging and will certainly flex the ol’ cortex a few times by the end. I openly admit to getting stuck on a few occasions. Another interesting thing I noticed was that sometimes I could solve certain puzzles in more than one way. Now, this is well and good, but the real stroke of genius is that the game actually has eight “worlds.” The brilliance here lies in the implementation. Each standard level has three treasure chests, often hidden by their own puzzle, separate from the main path. Find and obtain all three chests in a level, and you’ll unlock a bonus stage. Clear the bonus stage and you’ll unlock some kind of behind-the-scenes extra, like concept art of different Blob powers. It’s a nice little touch that gives you a little reward for putting the time into mastering the game. And master it you must in order to complete the bonus stages.
The game’s balance works wonderfully in this manner: the main levels aren’t incredibly hard to complete, while collecting the treasures proves more of a challenge, with the bonus levels being significantly more difficult. This enables players seeking harder levels to earn them. These bonus stages, in my experience, generally focused on really forcing you to master a particular mechanic or power — one level involving tightly coordinated use of the “bouncy ball” power had me dying more times than any other level I had played, and it was an early extra level. Speaking of dying, the only consequence for dying is generally being sent back to the start of the particular puzzle or sequence you were on, but sometimes the game seemed to send me farther back than made sense, or even a little further ahead than I had actually gone. It’s incredibly easy to die and in some cases doesn’t make sense, as well. The Boy can’t swim, at ALL? Barely touching enemies results in him instantly flopping to the ground like a sack of potatoes. It does place the focus where it belongs, however: puzzle solving. Even boss battles are really more puzzles that happen to have you dodging attacks while figuring them out. They’re few and far inbetween, but are fun enough, if way too easy. After a disappointing “final” boss I was pleasantly surprised by an unexpected ending sequence of gameplay that totally caught me off guard in a good way, with a much more appropriate final confrontation. You might think I’m spoiling something for you by saying this, but trust me, the real treat involves actually playing this final sequence.
A Boy and His Blob isn’t without its faults. I encountered a few more glitchy moments than I would have liked (passing through pieces of ground or enemies slipping through objects), and once in a while a puzzle will have a solution that involves lining objects up a little more perfectly than seems possible at first. The Boy also can’t jump very high at all — the game does accomodate for this but it can still feel a bit strange how little verticality he has available given that this is part platformer. Other than these more minor complaints, there are but only two main issues I had with A Boy and His Blob: the game still holds your hand a little too much at times with what powers you should use and when, and the Boy’s cries of aid for the Blob got real annoying. Every time you need Blob to catch up with your or convert back to his normal form, the Boy shouts out to him. “HEY!” “HURRY!” and “OVER HERE!” got real old real fast, and in a way, made me pity the poor Blob for having a Boy who yells at him so much. You’d think he’d be a little more appreciative! At least after two tries of calling out the Boy will whistle, which will cause Blob to turn into a balloon and quickly float right on over, no matter where he is. When the music is so well-made in capturing an adventurous fantasy tone, being tempted to mute the volume just so I don’t have to listen to the Boy’s incessant commands was kind of a let-down. The game also could’ve made use of some of the powers in a more creative way. I very rarely had to stop and think about what power I needed to use — I could almost always tell what I needed to do within a few seconds of looking at a section, and those giant wooden signs obviously made the job even easier. For example, boss battles generally boiled down to dropping something on top of their heads. When you see small sections buried underground, you always know you’re gonna need to use the “Hole” power to drop something through. When you see switches you know you’ll often need to turn Blob into a Anvil to weigh one of them down. While it does have a great amount of variety in its level design and I admittedly did miss out on a good number of the extra levels, there was still some potential for chaining together interesting combinations of powers that could have occurred even in the main quest that usually didn’t.
I’d be remiss to not point out that, amongst all of its focus on puzzle-based platforming, that A Boy and His Blob has a delightful set of production values backing it up. The sound effects are few but effective, the music is somewhat limited but well made, but it’s the visuals that steal the show. Backgrounds are lush and detailed, with subtle lighting effects playing off of the Boy and his Blob just as you’d think they would, and the characters are richly animated, looking almost like Miyazaki movie characters. For a lesser known third party project, this is some high quality, if simplistic presentation. It’s focused and well-executed and looks pretty good given any console out there.
-Blobs Make Practical Pets-
A Boy and His Blob is an interesting rebirth of an NES title that was perhaps ahead of its time in concept, but right here on the Wii, with its streamlined interface and gameplay tweaks, it has found a wonderful new home with a potential audience that really is missing out on what is easily one of the best experiences to be had on the platform this year and definitely one of the most solid third party efforts I have played on the Wii to date. It’s got its issues but make no mistake: A Boy and His Blob will surprise you with its depth, presentation, and charm, as well as its content. If you’re a fan of the puzzle-platforming genre, or are simply up for a 2D adventure alternative to Mario, don’t hesitate to pick this one up — it will surprise you if you dig into it.
-High Score-
8/10
See original here:
GoNintendo ‘End of Day’ Thoughts: A Boy and His Blob review by D3stiny_Sm4sher
