Will you banish the darkness from the world, or will you become it? Mable & The Wood is an adventure platformer about a shape-shifting girl whose power might be destroying the world she's trying to save.
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The mechanics are just horrible. Why would you make your platformer work this way? Just to be different? Unplayable.
This review contains spoilers
Forced myself to finish this.
Many bosses were cheesable with the spider form. Some parts could be skipped with the ghost form, and you can clip through walls with mole form.
I missed picking up the map for most levels (not by choice), making navigation an absolute slag.
Never once needed to use a potion, and currency being lost upon death AND getting hit made it a chore to collect them. Despite that I realized about a third into the game that I didn’t even need currency as I couldn’t even find a shop to begin with.
Unlocking a door with a collectible key only to find another of the same collectible key.
Finished a boss, game crashed during the animation, had to restart from the checkpoint to beat it again.
Not a fan of the story, especially with the abrupt end.
I remember feeling bad for how many backers I saw scrolling by on the end credits.
I’m normally super positive about everything, but this game left me feeling bitter. I’d give it a half star, but the character movement was fun at times, so a bitter one and a half.
Many bosses were cheesable with the spider form. Some parts could be skipped with the ghost form, and you can clip through walls with mole form.
I missed picking up the map for most levels (not by choice), making navigation an absolute slag.
Never once needed to use a potion, and currency being lost upon death AND getting hit made it a chore to collect them. Despite that I realized about a third into the game that I didn’t even need currency as I couldn’t even find a shop to begin with.
Unlocking a door with a collectible key only to find another of the same collectible key.
Finished a boss, game crashed during the animation, had to restart from the checkpoint to beat it again.
Not a fan of the story, especially with the abrupt end.
I remember feeling bad for how many backers I saw scrolling by on the end credits.
I’m normally super positive about everything, but this game left me feeling bitter. I’d give it a half star, but the character movement was fun at times, so a bitter one and a half.
The gameplay is messy, the level design is just awfully boring. It's not a very interesting game even though the original concept sounds cool.
This review contains spoilers
I don't think designing a game should start with the idea of, "What if we took a typical game of this style, then added a cumbersome set of mechanics that made controlling your character feel really unpleasant?"
That's Mable and the Wood, through and through. Uniqueness created by unusual movement and combat doesn't make a game better in most cases -- it just makes it different.
Climbing Mt. Aida in this game is a great example of where it all falls apart quickly. The fairy mode is essentially too slow in most cases to get up the mountain past the giant spikes that shoot out of walls (which are one-hit kills). The spider mode asks you to tether yourself to objects that are off-screen, which means you need to die enough times while shooting yourself at angles toward ledges above you to know where they are so you can pull yourself through. Also, broken hitboxes for the spikes, but that's another story.
Is it possible to take a different route at that point in the game? Maybe -- there's a lot of walled off paths and the map system isn't exactly useful about clueing you in on where you should go, so the mountain is the natural progression path after the first boss (to me). It's doable, but that doesn't make it fun.
At least it looks really nice. Steam offers it on sale at times for 80% off. If you can get that deal on whatever your preferred system is, give it a try.
That's Mable and the Wood, through and through. Uniqueness created by unusual movement and combat doesn't make a game better in most cases -- it just makes it different.
Climbing Mt. Aida in this game is a great example of where it all falls apart quickly. The fairy mode is essentially too slow in most cases to get up the mountain past the giant spikes that shoot out of walls (which are one-hit kills). The spider mode asks you to tether yourself to objects that are off-screen, which means you need to die enough times while shooting yourself at angles toward ledges above you to know where they are so you can pull yourself through. Also, broken hitboxes for the spikes, but that's another story.
Is it possible to take a different route at that point in the game? Maybe -- there's a lot of walled off paths and the map system isn't exactly useful about clueing you in on where you should go, so the mountain is the natural progression path after the first boss (to me). It's doable, but that doesn't make it fun.
At least it looks really nice. Steam offers it on sale at times for 80% off. If you can get that deal on whatever your preferred system is, give it a try.
This game has that kind of control scheme that feels like a tech demo that I've had enough of after about half an hour or so. It's neat and fresh, but not something I want to spend much time on. I bounced myself and my sword, killed some enemies by flying around and tossing the blade, thought it was neat, and then I had enough.