The Mummy Demastered

So, having finally purchased this game, I was fully ready to take on what I was told would be a brutal challenge. See, the game employs a system in which your faceless soldier, if greeted with death, is turned into a zombie. The next soldier you use must fight this zombie to reclaim all of the upgrades you have collected. This is certainly an interesting mechanic... but I never saw it. If you don't die, you'll never engage this mechanic and the difficulty is quite sane. There are moments where you may get close to death (the pop-up sarcophagi in particular are tough to react to effectively), but as long as you manage your health and occasionally stop to top off ammo as well, you should be okay. This leaves the rest of the gameplay, which is an absolute blast. It cribs heavily from Super Metroid; even the dash mechanic works similarly here. You may look like a military dude, but really, it has to be Samus Aran under the armor. If you're going to crib, though, crib from the best. Exploring is fun, and seeing the sights really just brings home the next point... ...about how gorgeous the pixel art is. This is sort of top-tier artwork you might have hoped to see from the best 32-bit sprite-based games of yesteryear. The gameplay might be Metroid, but the graphical patina is pure Castlevania, and it works wonderfully. To top off the package, the soundtrack by Monomer fits the action perfectly, and is worth listening to even outside of the game. A haunting sort of synthwave and chiptune mix is on tap here, and while WayForward often likes to tap Jake Kaufman for their soundtracks (see Bloodrayne Betrayal), Monomer was absolutely the right man for the job here. Perhaps my only real quibble with the game is that bosses don't feel terribly challenging overall. If you explore enough, they shouldn't pose a huge threat. That, and the game is short; I finished in 4.5 hours. Still, Metroid fans will easily get their money's worth.

And I didn't put much time in to come to this conclusion. The game looks great, controls well, and feels good over all...BUUUUUTTTTT The rate of enemy respawn that I experienced was WAAAAY too much, and felt more like a chore than fun for me. I like difficult games, but adding difficulty by spamming you with mobs isn't difficult, it's cheap.

Let's talk about the good stuff first. The game is a metroidvania so obviously you're going to find lots of upgrades that will help you in your playthrough. Most of these upgrades come in form of guns and explosives and I must admit - they're very well done and extremely fun to use. Additionally you're going to get some traversal abilities like grabbing onto a ceiling or faster running. All of that is really well done and makes the protagonist a joy to controll. What should be noted is that the game doesn't require you to grab every single gun or movement upgrade in order to progress - there are many optional upgrades that can make the game easier but aren't a part of your main path. These are just as good as the obligatory upgrades - there's more to this game's optional goodies than extra ammo. The bosses are definitely one of this game's best parts - they might operate on very clear patterns a bit too much for my liking but they're done in a way that lets you go ham on them, unloading all your ammunition and grenades while being hard enough to cause one or two deaths if you're not careful. Wayforward has proven to be very competent when it comes to pixel art and this game is no exception - it's very pleasing to the eye. The music might not be extremely memorable but it's both atmospheric and catchy. It does its job and fairly well so. That's a lot of good stuff ... but there are definitely some bad things about this game too. One of such things is the way you refill your health meter - you either find a first aid kit that will extend your maximum health and fully heal you (which are obviously limited in number and each one can only be used once) or you grind for health pickups. There is no good reason to not have a health refill room. Additionally I really don't like this game's approach to level design - enemy spam is not level design. You may think it doesn't sound like much but those things bothered me throughout my whole playthrough. It gets annoying.

This is a prime example of a licensed adaptation, even if the movie is crap, mediocre, or just okay, that doesn't stop the game from having to be awesome. The game feels more like Controid then Metroidvania, because you play as a special forces soldier with a wide arsenal of guns and blast the heck out of everything your way while dodging various enemies and projectiles that move in all different directions, combine that with the Metroid style of maze exploration with powerups and secrets scattered abroad, and you have what I call a Controid game. Killer soundtrack, amazing pixel art, smooth gameplay, and good pacing make this a worthy game for all Metroidvania fans. Its just a shame its overlooked for being based on a bad movie.

The game chooses it's language according to your operating system's language and you can't change it manually. In my case that happens to be German and the German translation of the game is just plain bad. You also cannot change your keybindings, in case you like to play using your keyboard.