I'm gonna be honest and preface this review with the following: I picked up this game expecting to play it ironically. It was never my intention to play this game for more than 30 minutes, and I absolutely did not see coming that this would be one of my favorites of the year.
There were 2 things I knew about the game: it was similar to Ape Escape (series I haven't played so I can't confirm nor deny), and that everyone desesperately wanted this game to be an undercover horror game (this includes me).
Despite doing something as stupid as booting up a game for "ironic" purposes is, I'm really glad to say I was met with a really entertaining and charming cast of characters, a bopping ost, and a really engaging story.
Despite Bugsnax's characters filling the role of an archetype (the jock, the nerd, the gossip girl), they are all cleverly written and have actual depth to them. The relationships that the Grumpuses have with eachother make them feel like actual characters instead of walking tropes. Dialogues are also very well written, finding a good balance between comedy and character development. I found most of the cast to be very likeable and charming, and was very interested in seeing how their stories developed and concluded. This is all neatly tied with a superb voice acting ribbon.
Not to mention how nicely the LGBT representation is handled, caught me completely off-guard.
In terms of plot, I was really surprised to see how quickly I found myself engaged. The underlying mystery that surrounds Snaktooth Island and Lizbert's dissapearance keeps you guessing while you traverse the levels to unlock the next clue. Finding out the events that transpired before your arrival feels satisfying, culminating in a climax that had me at the edge of my seat and an ending that got me on the feels a little.
Surprisingly, the only aspect of Bugsnax that I found kind of lacking was the gameplay. Don't get me wrong, it's perfectly serviceable, but it also feels clunky.
Bugsnax operates on a pretty simple loop:
Get a quest -> find bugsnax -> catch the bugsnax -> resolve quest -> get more story.
The one that matters most here is the catch the bugsnax part, where you'll use a small arrange of tools to catch bugsnax. Of course, it's not always a simple task, with some bugsnax having gimmicks attached to them (such as being on fire, or needing to be cooled down, or being too big for the trap). These gimmicks are what lay the foundation for the puzzle aspects of the game, sometimes requiring you to lure bugsnax to different areas in the level in order to capture them.
Sadly, I think it falls short on the puzzle aspect. Luring out bugsnax isn't really all that challenging, just annoying. It also doesn't really go further than having to cool down one that's on fire with water/ice and viceversa, which mostly leads to a lot of luring bugsnax into eachother or the environment. This is mostly just annoying, or just feels really clunky. This also happens with some capturing methods, like combining the launchpad with the trap, or finding a surface to place the tripwire. A lot of the time, I felt that a succesful catch was mostly luck or brute force instead of actual puzzle solving.
Another weird mechanic includes day/night cycles and weather, both of which affect certain bugsnax' spawning, but it's fairly underutilized (specially weather, since only one bugsnak is affected by it).
There's also a severe lack of replayability, unless you wanna see the characters being bugsnaxed or if you missed a bugsnak (which doesn't take long to complete since there's not a lot of them).
Still, I really can't stress enough how good this game is. The amount of charm and quality the writing and the characters have is really impressive. And if you're on the club of people that wanted this game to have a horror underside, you're definitely not gonna be dissapointed.
There were 2 things I knew about the game: it was similar to Ape Escape (series I haven't played so I can't confirm nor deny), and that everyone desesperately wanted this game to be an undercover horror game (this includes me).
Despite doing something as stupid as booting up a game for "ironic" purposes is, I'm really glad to say I was met with a really entertaining and charming cast of characters, a bopping ost, and a really engaging story.
Despite Bugsnax's characters filling the role of an archetype (the jock, the nerd, the gossip girl), they are all cleverly written and have actual depth to them. The relationships that the Grumpuses have with eachother make them feel like actual characters instead of walking tropes. Dialogues are also very well written, finding a good balance between comedy and character development. I found most of the cast to be very likeable and charming, and was very interested in seeing how their stories developed and concluded. This is all neatly tied with a superb voice acting ribbon.
Not to mention how nicely the LGBT representation is handled, caught me completely off-guard.
In terms of plot, I was really surprised to see how quickly I found myself engaged. The underlying mystery that surrounds Snaktooth Island and Lizbert's dissapearance keeps you guessing while you traverse the levels to unlock the next clue. Finding out the events that transpired before your arrival feels satisfying, culminating in a climax that had me at the edge of my seat and an ending that got me on the feels a little.
Surprisingly, the only aspect of Bugsnax that I found kind of lacking was the gameplay. Don't get me wrong, it's perfectly serviceable, but it also feels clunky.
Bugsnax operates on a pretty simple loop:
Get a quest -> find bugsnax -> catch the bugsnax -> resolve quest -> get more story.
The one that matters most here is the catch the bugsnax part, where you'll use a small arrange of tools to catch bugsnax. Of course, it's not always a simple task, with some bugsnax having gimmicks attached to them (such as being on fire, or needing to be cooled down, or being too big for the trap). These gimmicks are what lay the foundation for the puzzle aspects of the game, sometimes requiring you to lure bugsnax to different areas in the level in order to capture them.
Sadly, I think it falls short on the puzzle aspect. Luring out bugsnax isn't really all that challenging, just annoying. It also doesn't really go further than having to cool down one that's on fire with water/ice and viceversa, which mostly leads to a lot of luring bugsnax into eachother or the environment. This is mostly just annoying, or just feels really clunky. This also happens with some capturing methods, like combining the launchpad with the trap, or finding a surface to place the tripwire. A lot of the time, I felt that a succesful catch was mostly luck or brute force instead of actual puzzle solving.
Another weird mechanic includes day/night cycles and weather, both of which affect certain bugsnax' spawning, but it's fairly underutilized (specially weather, since only one bugsnak is affected by it).
There's also a severe lack of replayability, unless you wanna see the characters being bugsnaxed or if you missed a bugsnak (which doesn't take long to complete since there's not a lot of them).
Still, I really can't stress enough how good this game is. The amount of charm and quality the writing and the characters have is really impressive. And if you're on the club of people that wanted this game to have a horror underside, you're definitely not gonna be dissapointed.