This game is ridiculously creative in its concept. Its story isn't special, but is serviceable and quite charming. The music is absolutely amazing. And to top it all off, I got this vibe from the game's graphical style that reminded me of 3D Canadian cartoons from the early 2010's that I'd catch an episode of here and there. I don't know how to really explain it, but it was a very uncanny feeling and really made me happy.
However, the gameplay is novel but uninteresting, and the game turns into a slog quickly. This game's levels are pretty long normally doing the bare minimum, taking at least 20-30 minutes. That's not a problem in and of itself. I've played games with levels that are longer and loved them. However, the length of these levels are exacerbated by a slow movement speed, long, segmented level design, and the amount of stuff to do.
The speed of Blob speaks for itself. The guy moves really slow, and his jumps are floaty and deceptively low. It makes movement kind of a chore and artificially lengthens stages. The segmented level design makes levels feel stretched out when they could honestly be more compact.
Then there's the amount of stuff to do. The goal of each level is to amass points to get through gates to beat a level under a time limit. When boiled down to that, it sounds a lot like Katamari. However, Katamari was much more streamlined. You roll up small stuff to roll up big stuff. It's really simple. In de Blob, you have to paint a level, but also liberate Graydians, beat enemies, paint certain sections of the map, and the biggest offender, the side quests. There's 4 kinds: ones where you race to a spot, ones where you beat up enemies, ones where you restore landmarks, and my least favorite ones, the ones where you paint specific buildings certain colors. The side quests are ridiculously repetitive and stages have dozens of them. Most of this is pointless though, as point requirements are very low and time is very lenient, so lots of stuff can be avoided, but it might not due to the relative ease of everything. Its gameplay loop becomes a fluffed up and needlessly complicated Katamari that ironically had some color and soul sapped from it.
It's a shame the game's levels made me quit, because the rest of the game's amazing imo and left a smile on my face. However, this game saps me every time I try to play it nowadays, so I just can't beat it.
However, the gameplay is novel but uninteresting, and the game turns into a slog quickly. This game's levels are pretty long normally doing the bare minimum, taking at least 20-30 minutes. That's not a problem in and of itself. I've played games with levels that are longer and loved them. However, the length of these levels are exacerbated by a slow movement speed, long, segmented level design, and the amount of stuff to do.
The speed of Blob speaks for itself. The guy moves really slow, and his jumps are floaty and deceptively low. It makes movement kind of a chore and artificially lengthens stages. The segmented level design makes levels feel stretched out when they could honestly be more compact.
Then there's the amount of stuff to do. The goal of each level is to amass points to get through gates to beat a level under a time limit. When boiled down to that, it sounds a lot like Katamari. However, Katamari was much more streamlined. You roll up small stuff to roll up big stuff. It's really simple. In de Blob, you have to paint a level, but also liberate Graydians, beat enemies, paint certain sections of the map, and the biggest offender, the side quests. There's 4 kinds: ones where you race to a spot, ones where you beat up enemies, ones where you restore landmarks, and my least favorite ones, the ones where you paint specific buildings certain colors. The side quests are ridiculously repetitive and stages have dozens of them. Most of this is pointless though, as point requirements are very low and time is very lenient, so lots of stuff can be avoided, but it might not due to the relative ease of everything. Its gameplay loop becomes a fluffed up and needlessly complicated Katamari that ironically had some color and soul sapped from it.
It's a shame the game's levels made me quit, because the rest of the game's amazing imo and left a smile on my face. However, this game saps me every time I try to play it nowadays, so I just can't beat it.