Animal Well Done
Like seemingly everyone, my appeal and interest in 2024's Animal Well stemmed from my even much earlier interest in Videogamedunkey, the head honcho of its publisher BIGMODE and longtime Youtube veteran. A fan of his for over a decade, cutting my teeth watching his now archaic League of Legends content, I knew that he had a knack (heh) for games that were fun if nothing else. I've disagreed with my fair share of his takes, but I knew with the announcement of Animal Well that there was a vision he had in Billy Basso's breakout title. Like many others, I waited with bated breath with more information about the game's mechanics and release date. Release came and reviews were staggeringly high for the ambitious sub fifty megabyte title, whose marketing campaign effectively boiled down to "Let Dunkey cook."
A disclaimer for this review: I struggle with Metroidvania's from a personal standpoint. I've played a handful of Metroid's, got into The Messenger, and maybe one whole hour of Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, but I could never stick with them on the principal of how they play. Without a consistent path of clear exploration towards narrative completion, I struggle for reasons unknown. With Metroid I had a hard time putting together item unlocks to their eventual applications, and didn't do too well in remembering where to traverse. My problems with previous experiences translated almost completely to Animal Well which was... well quite a good game regardless.
Animal Well is gorgeous, one of the factors most apparent in its reveal. Each screen is filled to the brim with colour and purpose, the backdrops consisting mainly of statues, mysterious creatures, and absconding movements of water. As my little blob made his way through the games sub ten hour runtime (probably shorter if chasing the main path,) my eyes scanned just about everything within the environment because of the visual reward that entailed. One touch I greatly appreciated is the (optional) setting that places faux CRT scanlines on the screen for a more mysterious vintage feel. For a game as consistently dark and dimly lit as Animal Well, having a feature that exaggerates its despair and gorgeous loneliness like that accents your time with the game in quite a great way.
Platforming and movement in Animal Well is fairly par for the course within the realm of 2D platformers and metroidvanias as a whole. You use a small selection of items naturally found through exploration for traversal and puzzle completion. Apt timing is required for successful jumps, and running is done at a brisk enough pace to make the game feel like it has a sense of urgency and quick completion to it. One thing I do want to commend the title on within this space is that it never feels like it is trying to do too much or require a finesse in perfect timing or long jump sequences. Though the puzzles can become slightly infuriating and rub you the wrong way, the issue rarely lied in me having to gamble on a perfect platforming sequence.
I said "rarely" in that last paragraph because of one of my main gripes with Animal Well, which I might as well start off with now. One of the notable features of the game is that there is no combat... but the catch is that there are enemies. How do you fight enemies in a game where you can't actually hit them? By running away! This isn't the end of the world in theory but it leads into another issue with Animal Well: the save system. Not unfamiliar for the genre but saving and checkpoints happen at telephones scattered around the map. These are mostly well located and central to places in which you spend your time and often do unlock as you progress to become even more centralized than you first encounter them, but not all is well that ends well. There are several mandatory chasing encounters in which you must run away from a big bad that follows you screen to screen. Death, which can happen by taking damage down to zero hearts or being crushed by an object, leads you to reset at the most recently visited aforementioned telephone. I spent a disgusting amount of time last night failing in the late stages of a chase sequence only to reset at a telephone, having to run all the way to the encounter, and then run all the way to attempt to complete the segment. As a Souls player I am no stranger to runbacks, but doing this ad nauseum and having to repeat and repeat which the occasional random instant death on a platforming sequence was infuriating. Animal Well in multiple points lacks respect for player free time in having to traverse to an area where you had progressed. This becomes more annoying in the chases because you can't pause and open the map... an unfortunate page to take out of the Dark Souls cook book.
Overall Animal Well is a phenomenal debut title for BIGMODE and an impressive title put forward by Billy Basso. Even though there's no real narrative to stick to, the save system requires a lot of work, and the chase scenes are needlessly grifting... this game has a lot to like about it. I'd recommend Animal Well to casual Dunkey fans or fans of Metroidvania's.
Like seemingly everyone, my appeal and interest in 2024's Animal Well stemmed from my even much earlier interest in Videogamedunkey, the head honcho of its publisher BIGMODE and longtime Youtube veteran. A fan of his for over a decade, cutting my teeth watching his now archaic League of Legends content, I knew that he had a knack (heh) for games that were fun if nothing else. I've disagreed with my fair share of his takes, but I knew with the announcement of Animal Well that there was a vision he had in Billy Basso's breakout title. Like many others, I waited with bated breath with more information about the game's mechanics and release date. Release came and reviews were staggeringly high for the ambitious sub fifty megabyte title, whose marketing campaign effectively boiled down to "Let Dunkey cook."
A disclaimer for this review: I struggle with Metroidvania's from a personal standpoint. I've played a handful of Metroid's, got into The Messenger, and maybe one whole hour of Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, but I could never stick with them on the principal of how they play. Without a consistent path of clear exploration towards narrative completion, I struggle for reasons unknown. With Metroid I had a hard time putting together item unlocks to their eventual applications, and didn't do too well in remembering where to traverse. My problems with previous experiences translated almost completely to Animal Well which was... well quite a good game regardless.
Animal Well is gorgeous, one of the factors most apparent in its reveal. Each screen is filled to the brim with colour and purpose, the backdrops consisting mainly of statues, mysterious creatures, and absconding movements of water. As my little blob made his way through the games sub ten hour runtime (probably shorter if chasing the main path,) my eyes scanned just about everything within the environment because of the visual reward that entailed. One touch I greatly appreciated is the (optional) setting that places faux CRT scanlines on the screen for a more mysterious vintage feel. For a game as consistently dark and dimly lit as Animal Well, having a feature that exaggerates its despair and gorgeous loneliness like that accents your time with the game in quite a great way.
Platforming and movement in Animal Well is fairly par for the course within the realm of 2D platformers and metroidvanias as a whole. You use a small selection of items naturally found through exploration for traversal and puzzle completion. Apt timing is required for successful jumps, and running is done at a brisk enough pace to make the game feel like it has a sense of urgency and quick completion to it. One thing I do want to commend the title on within this space is that it never feels like it is trying to do too much or require a finesse in perfect timing or long jump sequences. Though the puzzles can become slightly infuriating and rub you the wrong way, the issue rarely lied in me having to gamble on a perfect platforming sequence.
I said "rarely" in that last paragraph because of one of my main gripes with Animal Well, which I might as well start off with now. One of the notable features of the game is that there is no combat... but the catch is that there are enemies. How do you fight enemies in a game where you can't actually hit them? By running away! This isn't the end of the world in theory but it leads into another issue with Animal Well: the save system. Not unfamiliar for the genre but saving and checkpoints happen at telephones scattered around the map. These are mostly well located and central to places in which you spend your time and often do unlock as you progress to become even more centralized than you first encounter them, but not all is well that ends well. There are several mandatory chasing encounters in which you must run away from a big bad that follows you screen to screen. Death, which can happen by taking damage down to zero hearts or being crushed by an object, leads you to reset at the most recently visited aforementioned telephone. I spent a disgusting amount of time last night failing in the late stages of a chase sequence only to reset at a telephone, having to run all the way to the encounter, and then run all the way to attempt to complete the segment. As a Souls player I am no stranger to runbacks, but doing this ad nauseum and having to repeat and repeat which the occasional random instant death on a platforming sequence was infuriating. Animal Well in multiple points lacks respect for player free time in having to traverse to an area where you had progressed. This becomes more annoying in the chases because you can't pause and open the map... an unfortunate page to take out of the Dark Souls cook book.
Overall Animal Well is a phenomenal debut title for BIGMODE and an impressive title put forward by Billy Basso. Even though there's no real narrative to stick to, the save system requires a lot of work, and the chase scenes are needlessly grifting... this game has a lot to like about it. I'd recommend Animal Well to casual Dunkey fans or fans of Metroidvania's.