What is that? A cover art picture for ants?
Adventure Time: Make a Retail Release out of an XBLA Game Because I Don't Know!
Game Review | December 17, 2013 11:18 pm
By Moo Lissa
Normally, when I do reviews for games, I try to keep them in a sort of template and they're quite long. Of course I normally review retail RPG releases with hundreds of hours of gameplay, and taking less than 10 hours to write a review up would be doing the game a disservice. This game, however, is not a retail release. I don't care how much I paid for it, how many achievements it has, or how long it will take to complete said achievements... Adventure Time: EtDBIDK is, at its core, an arcade game. So here goes:
Developer: WayForward Technologies
Publisher: D3 Publisher
US Release: November 19, 2013
I've tried to hide my affinity for the fabulous show Adventure Time, but a few of you sleuths have seen through me. So it probably came as no surprise that I was one of maybe 5 people who preordered the Adventure Time game for 360 rather than just getting it through Redbox like everyone else.
I was hoping for the absurdity, the likeability and the down right charm of the animated series. I anticipated a Diablo type dungeon crawler where in between the main story line, there would be side character driven quests that could possibly tie in to episodes. And at the heart of it, the best part for me, it was a multiplayer game that would allow me to play with my friends so we could all share the love I have for the Adventure Time property.
HA!
And again- HA!
The opening sequence for the game is a deliberate throwback in animation style and design to old school dungeon crawlers. It was cute, but I was assuming the game itself would be more along the lines of the animation in the show.
How could I have been so wrong?
Instead, the game continued the retro feel with what amounted to semi recognizable chibi-esque sprites in dungeons that suffered from a lack of detail and monotonous, nondescript design.
Here is a screen shot from the 360 version of the game, followed by the 3ds version:
The 3ds shot is significantly smaller, due to the fact that they put the entire game on the top screen, but even from these shots, it's obvious that the graphics quality is the same between the two versions. So- I mean- that kind of sucks. I was far from blown away by the graphics and art even if they did it deliberately to dredge up some kind of nostalgia for old school games, and not as a cheap way to make a buck off a popular IP without having to put a lot of effort into making it look good (which I'm not 100% sure is the case). The dungeons are better, crisply rendered and cartoony- but also very repetitive and monotonous.
Since looks aren't everything, let's get to the gameplay so I can tell you how it really saves the game..... Is what I WOULD say, if there was anything redeeming at all about the gameplay. Instead, the game continues the nostalgia fest by combining the absolute worst parts of arcade grade dungeon crawlers, like the awful, awful, awful incarnations of Gauntlet that began in arcades. I mean- the first gauntlet, not the WAYYY more enjoyable Gauntlet that came out on N64. You're not playing as a red Valkyrie, you're playing as Marceline, but you're still wandering around dungeons finding keys and loot and food until you get gang banged to death by a combination of enemy spawners without limits and terrible hit detection.
Since I mentioned Marceline, I'll touch on the characters in the game. You can play as quite a few characters, but you only begin with 4. Finn, Jake, Marceline and... Cinnamon Bun. Yes, Cinnamon Bun. How does the game explain his presence as a primary character rather than a character that would make sense (like Peppermint Butler, Lemongrab, LSP, BMO, or pretty much ANYONE else)? He and Marceline walk up together and say "We're best friends now," and that's that. Anyway, each character has a special talent. Marceline floats, Jake can stretch over spaces, Cinnamon Bun is a tank, and Finn can equip an extra item. The other characters have special stuff too, I guess, but I don't use them since there's only achievements for maxing out the main 4 and honestly, I'm not playing the game enough to max every character. *edit* there are actually achievements for maxing almost every playable character... Yay.
There are a LOT of characters in the show!
The gameplay itself is extremely simple. You walk around and kill things with attacks, special attacks (that use "imagination"), and weapons you find lying around, and attempt to not be killed in the process. The point is to collect treasure and in turn use that treasure to purchase stat upgrades. The problem is, stat upgrades are ridiculously expensive, and the beginning levels (until at least level 30 or so) don't really get a lot of treasure. When you play multiplayer, the treasure is not pooled (finders keepers) and the characters are rubber banded together (there is no online MP, and it's not split screen- so it's 4 people tethered to each other) so it seems like playing solo is the way to go, but then you're in for a tough fight. Enemies are quite difficult, as they can easily overwhelm you and shoot projectiles into your back while you attack the ones coming at your front. Of course, if you die, you're warped to the surface and lose your progress and half of your treasure. The controls are unresponsive and the hit boxes are much larger around you than they are around the enemies. There is no diagonal for your character when you're attacking either, which makes you especially vulnerable to diagonal attacks from others. And it's just nottttt funnnnnn.
Rowdiness (atk) is just one of the stats you get to spend a buttload of treasure to upgrade. Yay.
Every 5 levels, you have the option to return to the surface to buy items, turn in quests and upgrade your stats. The game also auto saves at that point so you can't lose your progress up to that point if you die. When you choose to return to the dungeon, surprise!!! You can't take your treasure with you, it's collected by Princess Bubblegum. So saving for more expensive upgrades is not possible unless you just don't come up to the surface for 10-20 levels. It's a completely flawed system that seriously needs a bank.
The quests are incredibly banal and amount to a bunch of kill this, do that orders that don't make sense all the time, are not fleshed out much by story and just seem crammed in to have something to do. The enemies are mostly enemies found in the show, and the bosses (who appear every 10 levels) are some of the bigger names in the show (ie: Ice King, Lemongrabs, etc...). There is a little bit of story around boss fights, but it's mostly devoid of the personality you would expect from Adventure Time. Each character is largely one dimensional and the script appears to have been written by someone who saw a handful of episodes and decided to make a fan fic. It's trivial and pointless, and not in the "I want whatever drugs they're on" way that the show is. More like, "how did they ever think this would be fun?"
The first boss fight isn't very impressive. Neither is Jake's banter.
The voice acting is from the actual adventure time actors (who are VA phenoms), but apparently they couldn't be bothered to record more than 2 phrases for fighting (or maybe the writers couldn't be bothered to write lines, IDK). Either way, what it ends up as is a game where you spend hours and hours fighting while the characters repeat the same phrases over and over and over again. For hours. This is one of my pet peeves for games, too. You're making a game that you know (or hope) people will be playing for hours on end, and you don't put any variation in what you have them say? But you still insist that they must say something? Seriously. Even the speaking during the story bits seems extremely slow moving and drawn out for some reason. I don't ever want to fast forward through an episode of adventure time, no matter how many times I have seen it, but I couldn't even take the cutscenes at some points of the game! The music is fine, of course, and sound is definitely not the worst part of the game (that definitely falls to the clunky, unfun gameplay), but it should have been the best.
Considering the difficulty of the game and the necessity to grind out levels, this game will take a considerable amount of time to get through. It won't be fun time, however, unless you're just seriously jonesing for a gauntlet fix. It also won't be terrible. Just kind of- meh. Which, I guess describes this game pretty well, and is a good note to end on.
GRAPHICS- 7
GAMEPLAY- 3
STORY- 5
AUDIO- 5
LENGTH/REPLAY VALUE- 5
OVERALL SCORE- 5
Tl;dr version- This game would be a solid entry into the xbla library, even with the lifeless story, crummy gameplay and repetitive voice acting. Because seriously- there aren't a ton of really great arcade games. Unfortunately, they made the decision to release it as a full release title, and charge full release money, and it just fell flat. If you're a huge fan of Adventure Time or old school dungeon crawlers, redbox it or wait for it to drop to $10. If you're looking for a retail game that stands up to the bar that has been set by Blizzard this year, keep looking, because this ain't it.
Developer: WayForward Technologies
Publisher: D3 Publisher
US Release: November 19, 2013
I've tried to hide my affinity for the fabulous show Adventure Time, but a few of you sleuths have seen through me. So it probably came as no surprise that I was one of maybe 5 people who preordered the Adventure Time game for 360 rather than just getting it through Redbox like everyone else.
I was hoping for the absurdity, the likeability and the down right charm of the animated series. I anticipated a Diablo type dungeon crawler where in between the main story line, there would be side character driven quests that could possibly tie in to episodes. And at the heart of it, the best part for me, it was a multiplayer game that would allow me to play with my friends so we could all share the love I have for the Adventure Time property.
HA!
And again- HA!
The opening sequence for the game is a deliberate throwback in animation style and design to old school dungeon crawlers. It was cute, but I was assuming the game itself would be more along the lines of the animation in the show.
How could I have been so wrong?
Instead, the game continued the retro feel with what amounted to semi recognizable chibi-esque sprites in dungeons that suffered from a lack of detail and monotonous, nondescript design.
Here is a screen shot from the 360 version of the game, followed by the 3ds version:
The 3ds shot is significantly smaller, due to the fact that they put the entire game on the top screen, but even from these shots, it's obvious that the graphics quality is the same between the two versions. So- I mean- that kind of sucks. I was far from blown away by the graphics and art even if they did it deliberately to dredge up some kind of nostalgia for old school games, and not as a cheap way to make a buck off a popular IP without having to put a lot of effort into making it look good (which I'm not 100% sure is the case). The dungeons are better, crisply rendered and cartoony- but also very repetitive and monotonous.
Since looks aren't everything, let's get to the gameplay so I can tell you how it really saves the game..... Is what I WOULD say, if there was anything redeeming at all about the gameplay. Instead, the game continues the nostalgia fest by combining the absolute worst parts of arcade grade dungeon crawlers, like the awful, awful, awful incarnations of Gauntlet that began in arcades. I mean- the first gauntlet, not the WAYYY more enjoyable Gauntlet that came out on N64. You're not playing as a red Valkyrie, you're playing as Marceline, but you're still wandering around dungeons finding keys and loot and food until you get gang banged to death by a combination of enemy spawners without limits and terrible hit detection.
Since I mentioned Marceline, I'll touch on the characters in the game. You can play as quite a few characters, but you only begin with 4. Finn, Jake, Marceline and... Cinnamon Bun. Yes, Cinnamon Bun. How does the game explain his presence as a primary character rather than a character that would make sense (like Peppermint Butler, Lemongrab, LSP, BMO, or pretty much ANYONE else)? He and Marceline walk up together and say "We're best friends now," and that's that. Anyway, each character has a special talent. Marceline floats, Jake can stretch over spaces, Cinnamon Bun is a tank, and Finn can equip an extra item. The other characters have special stuff too, I guess, but I don't use them since there's only achievements for maxing out the main 4 and honestly, I'm not playing the game enough to max every character. *edit* there are actually achievements for maxing almost every playable character... Yay.
There are a LOT of characters in the show!
The gameplay itself is extremely simple. You walk around and kill things with attacks, special attacks (that use "imagination"), and weapons you find lying around, and attempt to not be killed in the process. The point is to collect treasure and in turn use that treasure to purchase stat upgrades. The problem is, stat upgrades are ridiculously expensive, and the beginning levels (until at least level 30 or so) don't really get a lot of treasure. When you play multiplayer, the treasure is not pooled (finders keepers) and the characters are rubber banded together (there is no online MP, and it's not split screen- so it's 4 people tethered to each other) so it seems like playing solo is the way to go, but then you're in for a tough fight. Enemies are quite difficult, as they can easily overwhelm you and shoot projectiles into your back while you attack the ones coming at your front. Of course, if you die, you're warped to the surface and lose your progress and half of your treasure. The controls are unresponsive and the hit boxes are much larger around you than they are around the enemies. There is no diagonal for your character when you're attacking either, which makes you especially vulnerable to diagonal attacks from others. And it's just nottttt funnnnnn.
Rowdiness (atk) is just one of the stats you get to spend a buttload of treasure to upgrade. Yay.
Every 5 levels, you have the option to return to the surface to buy items, turn in quests and upgrade your stats. The game also auto saves at that point so you can't lose your progress up to that point if you die. When you choose to return to the dungeon, surprise!!! You can't take your treasure with you, it's collected by Princess Bubblegum. So saving for more expensive upgrades is not possible unless you just don't come up to the surface for 10-20 levels. It's a completely flawed system that seriously needs a bank.
The quests are incredibly banal and amount to a bunch of kill this, do that orders that don't make sense all the time, are not fleshed out much by story and just seem crammed in to have something to do. The enemies are mostly enemies found in the show, and the bosses (who appear every 10 levels) are some of the bigger names in the show (ie: Ice King, Lemongrabs, etc...). There is a little bit of story around boss fights, but it's mostly devoid of the personality you would expect from Adventure Time. Each character is largely one dimensional and the script appears to have been written by someone who saw a handful of episodes and decided to make a fan fic. It's trivial and pointless, and not in the "I want whatever drugs they're on" way that the show is. More like, "how did they ever think this would be fun?"
The first boss fight isn't very impressive. Neither is Jake's banter.
The voice acting is from the actual adventure time actors (who are VA phenoms), but apparently they couldn't be bothered to record more than 2 phrases for fighting (or maybe the writers couldn't be bothered to write lines, IDK). Either way, what it ends up as is a game where you spend hours and hours fighting while the characters repeat the same phrases over and over and over again. For hours. This is one of my pet peeves for games, too. You're making a game that you know (or hope) people will be playing for hours on end, and you don't put any variation in what you have them say? But you still insist that they must say something? Seriously. Even the speaking during the story bits seems extremely slow moving and drawn out for some reason. I don't ever want to fast forward through an episode of adventure time, no matter how many times I have seen it, but I couldn't even take the cutscenes at some points of the game! The music is fine, of course, and sound is definitely not the worst part of the game (that definitely falls to the clunky, unfun gameplay), but it should have been the best.
Considering the difficulty of the game and the necessity to grind out levels, this game will take a considerable amount of time to get through. It won't be fun time, however, unless you're just seriously jonesing for a gauntlet fix. It also won't be terrible. Just kind of- meh. Which, I guess describes this game pretty well, and is a good note to end on.
GRAPHICS- 7
GAMEPLAY- 3
STORY- 5
AUDIO- 5
LENGTH/REPLAY VALUE- 5
OVERALL SCORE- 5
Tl;dr version- This game would be a solid entry into the xbla library, even with the lifeless story, crummy gameplay and repetitive voice acting. Because seriously- there aren't a ton of really great arcade games. Unfortunately, they made the decision to release it as a full release title, and charge full release money, and it just fell flat. If you're a huge fan of Adventure Time or old school dungeon crawlers, redbox it or wait for it to drop to $10. If you're looking for a retail game that stands up to the bar that has been set by Blizzard this year, keep looking, because this ain't it.
Rating: 5.0 of 10
Reviewed: Adventure Time
Keywords: None
