Genre: Action, Adventure
Developer: Blue Tongue Entertainment
Publisher: THQ Nordic
Platform: Xbox One [reviewed], PS4, PC
Release Date: November 14, 2017
A lot of you may remember the original de Blob when it launched on the Nintendo Wii. The game helped show off just what motion-control could add to the gaming experience and went on to win a bunch of awards at the time. With this remaster we get everything that made the original great minus the motion control. But does the lack of what really made the game special take anything away from the overall experience?
The short answer is yes. While de Blob looks fantastic in its remastered state, the game loses the magic that made it a unique experience. Sure, there was a sequal to the game that was designed for controllers, but this original entry doesn’t fare quite as well. This isn’t to say that the controls are bad, but you’ll be fighting de Blob more often than not. It’s not an easy task to take a game designed around the Wii’s motion control and just throw everything onto an Xbox One controller.
The charm of the entire experience is still there, but it’s more finicky than it needs to be. It’s hard to explain if you haven’t played the original title on the Wii, but de Blob often feels like he’s fighting your movements, especially when trying to do anything that require the smallest bit of precision. You’ll be missing jumps and sometimes fighting to get him to go where you want throughout your adventure.
Visually, de Blob looks better than ever, but again, there are some strange issues. Ignoring the launch trailer that was running at 15 frames per second, the game runs great in real life. But I was really worried about everything when I booted the game up as none of the cutscenes for the game have been touched. They play back in the same 420p quality that the Wii outputted which is a real shame as the cutscenes helped lend to the games charm. Thankfully this is the only visual issue as both the menus and game are outputted in high-definition and look great.
In de Blob you collect paint and then bounce around the black and white city, bringing color back to a very bland world. It’s an incredibly simple concept that works beautifully. The trick from from the time limit that each stages employs. You can complete all sorts of challenges in each stage that add to you time, so while you may start out with only a few minutes on the clock, you could spend a good chuck of time on a single level.
As the game progresses you will encounter new obstacles that can kill you as well as all sorts of enemies that are out to end you. It’s all a bunch of fun, but the interesting feature the game relies on is how it deals with your health. The paint you collect becomes your in-game health, and every time you pant a building, object, or attack and enemy it will deplete. You’ll also need to sacrifice your life to free certain plot specific buildings that require a certain color.
And as this is essentially a painting game, you are going to be collecting colors as you roll around. You’ll also be able to mix colors so that you can paint the town as your see fit. The game actually does a great job teaching the player about how colors work, so you could almost add an educational tag to this one. But all the color mixing isn’t just for fun as some challenges will require you to paint certain thing a specific color.
De Blob is built on a very simple premise, but the game is chalk full of content so as things get boring, even though you are pretty much doing the same thing over and over again. It’s one part painting game, one part platformer, one part rhythm game and a total blast to play. Factor in that the entire experience will only set you back $20 and you have a solid experience that is still as fun as ever, even with the new control scheme.
Final Score:
3/5
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