"A whimsical journey at a budget price."

I’ve always loved the concept of A Boy and His Blob: Trouble on Blobonia for the NES. The problem is, between the confusing map, limited jelly beans, and unforgiving hit detection, I could never get anywhere in the darn thing. Wayforward (developers of the fantastic Contra 4) decided to take that fascinating concept and “re-imagine” it into a more accessible and modern game.

For those who aren’t familiar with either game, A Boy and His Blob is a puzzle platformer. You control a young boy who finds a friendly little blob from another planet. By feeding the blob different flavors of jelly beans, the blob is able to transform into different objects that will help you get through each level.

When you boot up the game, you won’t be overwhelmed with lengthy cutscenes. Instead, the game starts right up without so much as a title screen menu. After playing a short section, you will find the blob who has just landed on Earth. From there, you’re ready to begin your adventure.

"The visual style fits the game like a glove."

The minimalistic approach doesn’t stop there. The game has no narration or dialogue (other than calling out to the blob as necessary). There are no tutorials stopping the action to tell you how to perform each new ability. There’s practically not even any text in the game. But what’s even stranger is that the game never feels like it needs any of those things.

The main game is divided into forty stages spanning four worlds. Each stage will give you a specific set of jelly beans to use. While some of the stages only give you a few to choose from, others give you up to eight at a time (of the total fifteen). Having the sets chosen in this way help the game from ever getting stale. There were many times where I would run into a situation I had been in before, but my current set of jelly beans forced me to approach it in a different way.

At the end of the last stage in every world, a boss awaits you. Like the rest of the game, the bosses must be defeated by using the blob in various ways. The first boss requires you to do three distinctly different things to hit it three times and defeat it. It felt remarkably well done and I hoped that it was a taste of what was to come later.

"The first boss is definitely the most interesting."

Unfortunately, the rest of the game’s bosses, while visually stunning, feel lackluster by comparison. Later bosses had much more blatantly obvious ways of damaging them that were merely repeated three times. That isn’t to say that they were easy. The problem was that the challenge was shifted from puzzle solving to hand-eye coordination, which felt like a betrayal of the game’s spirit.

The pacing in A Boy and His Blob felt very right. Whenever I started to feel like I had seen all the game had to offer, a new jelly bean was introduced. The difficulty curve also felt very consistent. The farther I got, the longer and more challenging the levels became. The exception to this was the end boss, who was actually much easier to defeat than some of the previous ones.

The graphics are not only amazing to look at, but a perfect fit for its mood. It looks like an animated children’s book. Muramasa: The Demon Blade may be more detailed, but A Boy and His Blob has more fluid animation. The bosses especially, are a treat to look at in motion.

Each of the four worlds has a unique atmosphere. This is even seen in the “hideout” between levels. While the first world’s home base is a tree house, the second world puts you in the boy’s real home after each stage. These little details, though not crucial to the game design, help to keep things even more visually interesting.

"Though the shield surprised me, nothing could prepare me for the final transformation."

There are times when the game’s accessibility is implemented to a fault. Throughout the game, there are various signs present in the backgrounds of stages. These signs have a picture showing which jelly bean you should use on a certain part of the stage. They’re not everywhere, but they’re in more places than I would have liked, and an option to turn them off would have made the game stronger while keeping its appeal for younger players. Still, I prefer an occasional sign in the background over an unskippable tutorial showing me step by incredibly slow step how to use each new jelly bean.

Though the main game can be finished in roughly five hours, each stage has three secret treasure chests to find. While some are practically in your path, others force you to go well out of your way, adding a decent amount of length to the stages. Finding treasures will unlock challenge stages. Since there are as many challenge stages as normal stages, the game can actually be over twice as long if you want it to be. Beating the challenge stages will also unlock bonus content like concept art and videos.

A Boy and His Blob is a very solid puzzle platformer. The minimal approach to story telling and childlike visual style work perfectly together. The game is oozing with charm. There is even a button specifically for hugging the blob if your heart has not been warmed enough by the graphics. Unlike the original NES game, it is very accessible and should be a great title to pick up for either yourself or a child at a budget price of forty bucks.

This review is based on a copy of A Boy and His Blob provided to us by Majesco.

Tags: 2-D, A Boy and His Blob, A Boy and His Blob: Trouble on Blobonia, budget titles, Majesco, platformer, Puzzle Platformer, Wayforward, Wii

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 22nd, 2009 at 5:00 am and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.