Animal Gods is a Puzzle/Action platformer from Still Games. And as you might tell from the screenshots, it’s freaking gorgeous. But there are problems…
I figure I’ll just start with the game’s biggest strength. The environments and art for the game are fantastic. You would be hard pressed to find other games in this genre on Steam that look this good. One of my only real problems with this game’s graphics is that the player character looks lie a robe with shoes attached to its corners, and every other creature you interact with in the game can be most generously described as a box, but that’s about it.
The world and dungeons are creepy and isolated in the best way, and they’re very visually appealing because of it. also, the designs for the gods are heavily stylized; they literally look like they were peeled off the wall of some ancient temple and spruced up for the game.
The soundtrack is suitably ethereal. I actually got the deluxe edition which included the soundtrack. Which is why I can honestly say that the majority of the tracks aren’t something you’re likely to listen to outside of the game proper. Most of them are purely ambient; they’re not likely to make a strong impression on you, and you won’t exactly be grooving to them. The major exception to this is the theme from the final level titled Monotheism. It actually impressed me quite a bit, which is why I was let down by the fact that it doesn’t really loop properly in-game or on the soundtrack.
Story-wise… the game is kind of depressing. You find a number of journal entries written by a girl named Juliette, describing events taking place an indeterminate amount of time before your character happens across them. They’re fairly easy to miss since they’re represented by a little circle on the floor. Spoiler alert: it doesn’t end well for Juliette or her family. You also find a number of entries from a guy named Scientist Sven, which help you make some sense of Juliette’s entries. The main takeaway I got from all of these entries is that Sven and Jessuh are fucking assholes. I’m sure I missed a few entries (there’s an achievement that seems like its supposed to trigger when you’ve read all of them), but I feel I read enough to make that judgement. Sven can eat a bag of dicks. Thistle (your character) really doesn’t have much going on. You just sort of go through all of these dungeons, get a few lines of bland dialogue, and the game ends. The game itself never gives you Thistle’s motivations for doing this; the marketing blurb, however, seems to be made patently untrue by the actual content.
Which leaves me no other option but to talk about the gameplay itself. It’s not good, to be blunt. There really aren’t any meat and potatoes to this, you are living off the taste of the air. Every dungeon gives you a weapon/item that’ only usable in that dungeon. As a matter of fact, the only time you can use all three items at once is in the final dungeon/boss fight. Which is good, as that part demonstrates that they really could have pared it down to just the bow and the cloak; the sword mentioned in the marketing requires you to be fairly close to an enemy to hit it, and the hitboxes are a little wonky. Not good in a game where a single hit sends you back to the last checkpoint, which are thankfully numerous enough that you won’t get too frustrated.
The one major gameplay problem comes from the most novel of the three; the Cloak of Flame. It allows you to teleport a short distance in the four cardinal directions. Halfway through its dungeon, you are given the ability to charge it to travel a little bit further with these teleports. The problem is that charging it require you to press the button and hold it, meaning that you need to teleport a short distance before you can charge for a long one. The initial teleport is fast enough that you might wind up misfiring a charged teleport before repositioning yourself to reach safe land. The Lion God’s room is the worst about this, forcing you to make several circuits around it, removing a checkpoint each time you make it around.
In closing, Animal Gods is a short game. I beat it in a single sitting, in just under two and a half hours. And a majority of that time was spent trying to figure out where to go, when it wasn’t spent doing certain parts (Lion God, I’m looking at you) over and over again. There is a nine lives mode unlocked after you beat the game, and I can’t fathom anyone willing to play through it. And while the game is impressive considering its two person dev team, its really not good enough for me to recommend it.
Title: Animal Gods
Developer: Still Games
Publisher: Still Games
Platform: PC
Price: $9.99 ($14.99 for Deluxe edition)
*A copy was provided for this review*
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