Mable & The Wood

Before- I had this game wishlisted for a long time, before it's release. I would go back and watch it's lil video and oogle over the pixels (which are gorgeous) and watch the cool transformations that the main character undergoes... Then the game came out and I was so excited. And then it went on sale and I was even more excited. Excited enough to finally buy it and play it... Now- I am very disappointed. It's a fun idea, but there really isn't very much interaction with characters. You get thrown into a long quest (you're the hero that has to save the day and such) and unfortunately the controls are very difficult to deal with. I get that it's a new idea: movement is attacking. I'm all for gimmicky new twists on gaming, but this just wasn't executed well. The movement of the sword is often difficult to control and you die from not calling it back to you at the right moment, or you are unable to call it back (a bug that happens sometimes) and you die. Again, the pixels are great, and the music is fun, but the levels were monotonous and dragged on to the point that I have not finished the game. I got bored trying to traverse the mountains, and since save points are few and far between it meant a lot of replay after death. (I would normally be fine with this, but the controls being as rough as they are this makes the process very, very tedious.) And there was hardly enough interaction to make me want to fight through the tediousness to reach my goal. I truly hope that future updates correct some of the harshness of the controls. It might make it more fun to traverse and encourage me to finish the game. But, for now, I'm just sad because of the great potential I saw in the video. It just didn't live up to the excitement that seemed to be there. I really wanted to like this game.

1. The controls are sluggish and awful 2. You can softlock the game within the first 5 min of playing (you can enter an area you won't be able leave without abilities you'll get later, which of course I did) 3. You lose a lot of your collected curreny on touching one of the weird hitboxes of things that can hurt you, dropping and pretty much losing it since your character is too slow to pick it all up before it vanishes 4. It crashes quite frequently 5. That stone golem thing in the gif of the game description above? I have no idea how you are supposed to damage it. I mean I *did* damage it, but I have no idea of *how* I did that. The sword can get stuck on it, it can go through it...and sometimes it takes damage, sometimes it doesn't. There is no meaningful hit-feedback. Luckily I got it for free, id be pretty pissed otherwiese.

This looked like it should be a fun game. Unfortunately, the Linux version doesn't work at all well: You can't change forms using the right analogue stick. I thought this might be a hardware issue, but I've tried two controllers (a Steam controller and a brand new Logitech F310), and I see from other reviews that I'm not the only one having this problem. So, one of the game's main mechanics is unavailable on a platform with which the game was meant to be compatible. Devs, did you even playtest the Linux version of this game? It's very disappointing. Please patch it; you've taken our money for half a game.

In summary: ONLY IF YOU LIKE BEING TESTED EXTENSIVELY. Sure, the music is slightly above average and the gfx are clean, though you have no goal besides going towards the end of the screen. The gameplay mechanics only handicap you in every way. E.g. you lose a chunk of your money if enemies hit you, just to rub it in more. You will be hit because the enemies use various means to be cheap, e.g. you cannot even hit the stone thingies. Oh and you are not given a map outside some minor dungeons. Imagine Symphony of the Night without a map - you have no idea where you are or where you are going or whether or not you are going anywhere. It is fitting as the game has no believable goals or things to look forward to. It's just another me-too product with no soul of its own. Reminds me of those quick Flash games on various sites. The game was made with GameMaker Studio. That is probably why it feels like a 10-month level creation project with some sound and gfx assets slapped onto it. The controls are okay, though they are all equally worthless. Moving around takes a long time (because the character is hauling a heavy sword with it), though you can speed it up by using the attack / sling actions, i.e. substituting tedium with significant amounts of work. The attack move is where the controls fall apart and that is also the most important part of doing anything in the game. It is difficult to describe briefly, its overall effect is crippling the gameplay. It never gets easy to do basic things with it, because it requires work. It's a permanent, NEGATIVE weapon gimmick. Castlevania and Metroid had POSITIVE weapon gimmicks that added more options for dealing with things and made the games more fun. Here it is just a burden that keeps getting worse. The story is complete trash and the other characters say completely useless things. It's like they were added in to fill some kind of quota or a to check a check-list item.