Fall Guys: Ultimate Edition - Bumbling Plasticity (Game Review)

in hive-103219 •  4 years ago 

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Publisher: Devolver Digital
Developer: Mediatonic
Platform: PC, PS4
Genre: Contest Game

Imagine a game Nintendo could have easily made, except they didn't. Pretty much missed the mark and that's not exactly a bad thing because Mediatonic has made a game really interesting. Chalk up with some silly, bubbly, whimsical personality that removes any human arbitration, this game is just choke full of fun.

I honestly had fun playing this, I don't know, it still feels like there are areas to compensate. It just lets you join in the game, play with strangers and do god knows what in some of the weirdest fashion similar to shows like Wipeout.

While the charm does last and it does seem like a game that has a winning formula. It's still somewhat long ways off. That's because for a multiplayer focused game it is missing key features that I want for it to be there. With that being said, lets get into why that is so.

Premise

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Yeah, these guys are just there to fumble, bump into each other, steal eggs, avoid falling off, jumping for their lives and repeat the course. You play in this make believe colorful, plastic world of toy avatars wearing whatever makeup you them on. That's the thing that helps the players to distinguish themselves in the game.

Other than that, they're trapped in this endless cycle of nonstop of pushing each other like Teletubbies, falling in god knows how low heights, pinching their backs, grabbing among other things. These poor things suffer abuses as millions of players subject them to it on a daily basis.

If you haven't figured it out by now, yes I empathize with them. Which is why I play better :)

Gameplay


So here's the gist, your characters can jump, dive and grab each other or objects. The basic gameplay is that, the rest is upto your wits and skills. Most of the time you need a sharp keen eye to best other players and good reflexes to dodge whatevers coming towards you to stop you from reaching your goal. At times, even pesky players will troll with you by grabbing just when you're an inch away from the finish line.

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There's no item locker, equipment, just hop in and play different modes chosen in random. Some of them goes from running to the finish line in order to be qualified as the first 50%, if not, you lose. Henceforth you play different rounds of different game modes, until you're eliminated. You have to play again. That's the loop.

The roster of maps and game modes are tossed into this lottery box, before blown out by the game and chosen for you to play. Of course, there's procedural generation in place to provide variety. But sometimes the maps look a little too similar. Maybe it helps as some of the game modes can be pretty intimidating to play at firsthand experience. Often times I was questioning myself over where I went wrong and that's when I realized that skills don't factor in everywhere. Most modes they do, but these kind feel like it leaves more to chance of luck rather than making you're own.

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Nonetheless, most of it is just goofy fun. You're pushing each other, using cheap tactics to do whatever it takes to win. And, sometimes you make leap of faiths in unpredictable scenarios that often results in you losing the gambit if you're me. Though if this game were to be active in a more Esports level, it needs some fine-tuning on both areas and gameplay mechanics. I can see this game going there with rank modes and online boards.


That being said, of course there are issues. Some big issues I'll have to talk about in other section, but this one is a little irritating. Going through areas with tunnels or passages often results the camera to be behind them but also made it for me to see my character using some silhouette implementation. This is either for the PS4 version because I've seen players in the PC version not experience this, but my fix for it was turning on online ID in-game.

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Also, there's no single-player package, no way to restrict yourself by playing a mode where just you or your friends can play solely for fun in isolated manner. Some games did this and it feels like a bad omission of sorts. Did I forget to mention there's no tutorial at first? I mean sure you can figure it out easily by seeing the controls or reading the briefing during loading screens but it would have helped a bit to acclimate some players into a game like this.

Even for a fun game such as this, it feels really streamlined more towards online play only without more modes for different calibers of mode. For a game such as this, these problems can be dismissive for most people but this isn't exactly what I would call a good decision on their part. Even if the game is half priced. You'd think Devolver would have something to say about this.

Online

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Ah yes, the game has Microtransaction for purchasing in-game cosmetics. That's fine for me. What isn't are these:

There's no PRIVATE LOBBY mode. Or any split-screen co-op mode. I mean is games having couch co-op too hard these days? I kind of wish it did. I would love to play this with friends and relatives. It should be considered a crime for omitting these, but hey what do I know? We live in 2020 right?

This has only one thing and that is play. You can invite your friends over to play, but that's about it. Deep Rock Galactic found a smarter way to create custom games or match people up based on same skill levels. Now I have to play with god knows how many who has played countless hours of this game. Balancing was another part of the issue even though this game is only skill based and there's no progression system creating bias in the gameplay, the problem for me was as a newcomer, the game was flooded with so many kinds of players, you had no choice but to hopelessly submit at things out of your control.

Visual Fidelity

Hey, another game made with UE.....hold up. Oh no wait, this is a Unity game and it actually looks pretty good. Not that I think Unity games wouldn't achieve this visual fidelity but the point stands that is the detailed textures, bubbly color palette, good lighting effects, etc are pretty remarkable. Even from the console.

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Yeah, the audio and music is pretty similar to games like Little Big Planet and Plants vs Zombies. Like its upbeat, cartoony, loud but well contained childish demeanor.

Summation

Fall Guys: Ultimate Edition. Yeah, not so ultimate. But it is tons of fun. I had a great time, I just hope that they add the features I've wanted and more. Yeah, I nitpick a lot, but the fun part of the game was worth it. I can see families enjoying this. Oh btw, these guys also made Gears Funko for mobile phone. Quite a nice transition to console gaming.

There's a crapton of match modes to play each rounds, so the gameplay loop is very enticing.

There are some improvements to be made as well, I can see this game getting popular in the coming months and it'll start fune-tuning as well as adding implementations for its longstay. If you're interested, stay updated on its mainstay.

7.5

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