Nobody Saves the World: Guacamelee Authors Game Review!

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nobody saves the world guacamelee authors game review!
nobody saves the world guacamelee authors game review!

After Guacamelee! and its sequel, Drinkbox Studios returns to surprise us with an unconventional Action RPG, a pleasant game but not without flaws.

 

We have seen, read and interpreted galore of anonymous gentlemen who leave from a sad hut in a remote village and find themselves having to save the world. However, it has rarely happened to be explicitly told that he is literally a Nobody: an empty envelope, without eyes or memory, perhaps equipped with just that bit of soul necessary to take steps and utter a few words. These are the (non-) characteristics of the protagonist of Nobody Saves the World, action / RPG and new work by Drinkbox Studios, already authors of the delicious and crazy Guacamelee! (to rediscover this indie gem, here is the Guacamelee review!), available from today on PC and Xbox (and included in the Game Pass).

Yet, not without a certain irony, the fulcrum of the experience lies in being essentially anyone, but only and exclusively to become someone. Quiet, philosophical ruminations aside, the game is anything but heavy or pompous: you can be a snail capable of firing rockets, or a cute fire-breathing turtle, or a zombie mermaid who can summon rabbits from a magician’s hat. Seriousness, even in the most dramatic and exciting moments of the plot, is not at home, and that’s fine. Discounted, with these Canadian jokers in the control room.

One, none, one hundred thousand (actually eighteen, to be precise)

The adventure of the emeritus Nobody starts like this, waking up in the tool shed of the majestic villa of Nostramagus, a powerful wizard who disappeared under dark circumstances. That the equally mysterious has something to do with it Magnet that plagues and infects the world with strange fungi that are impossible to eradicate, and that has brought with it hordes of monsters that haunt what were once peaceful villages? All to be verified and discovered, but what is certain is that the note left by the magician under his coffee machine together with a magic wand speak for themselves: someone has to grab it and run to save him.

The main power of the wand is one, but incredible: allows its owner to transform into various creatures, human and otherwise, inheriting their powers and, using the various forms, even mixing the faculties together, creating unstoppable mixes. It is a concept as simple as it is intriguing and functional, which gives depth to a action / RPG that aims to be

much lighter than average, in tone and mechanics, much more like Ubisoft’s South Park than a Dark Souls or a The Witcher, so to speak. You level up and there are statistics to upgrade, accumulating experience or buying upgrades from merchants, but no skill points to attribute, pieces of equipment to find or sophisticated mathematical calculations to be done to create your own definitive build: the progression revolves around the individual Aspects – as the game calls them – and the quests to complete to accumulate experience points. But watch out for the dungeons, each with a recommended level, useful to understand if it is the right time to face them, or if perhaps it is better to take a ride to massacre enemies in the overworld and to complete some pending quests.

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One quest leads to another

If the main and other missions, ranging from the search for fragments of a Gem capable of eradicating the Calamity to more mundane activities (such as helping a scientist to translate the language of dolphins, or helping a talking fish to become human), increase the overall level, every single aspect has its own degree (from F to S). Upon switching from one rating to another you get a new skill or unlock an extra slot, until new forms are unlocked. It starts with a miserable mouse (but don’t underestimate it!) And ends with a robot, a necromancer, even a dragon, passing through the most classic rogues and knights, but without forgetting magicians, bodybuilder ghosts.

An absolutely varied cast, with unique statistics, passive and active initial abilities and also some dialogue and contextual missions, which make exploration but also combat more stimulating: some NPCs will speak to us or give us access to a quest only “by wearing “a certain shape, while some areas will be closed to creatures that are too large or unable to swim.

The player has almost complete freedom, but it is the game itself that stimulates him, and in some cases forces him to try all forms.: it does so mainly thanks to an engaging and well thought-out system of challenges, necessary for the advancement of rank and limited by narrative events that dilute the progression and encourage us not to fossilize too much on the grinding, although necessary and a little tedious at least in the first half of a ‘adventure that well exceeds 20 hours. They are actually masked mini-tutorials, designed to best apply the various synergies between the original skills of the individual aspects, but also and above all between those of the various forms, so as to also show off the great versatility of the combat system.

Thanks to some passive abilities, one of the present statuses can be infused (from stun to poison, from burn to slow), so as to weaken and break elemental barriers (Light, Shadow, Slash, Contusion) regardless of the ability of the class to be able to face a certain

type of enemy. There are some, like the wizard for example, whose default attack damages the Light element, and, to face enemies with a Dark barrier, or you opt for an active ability associated with one of the 4 keys of the controller (the command system suggested by the team), or a passive is used that adds the right element to all attacks. By taking advantage of special improvement points, which can also be purchased or present in the loot (which includes only money and healing items), you can enhance individual skills making them gradually become more effective: from the protection of the poison that turns into complete immunity, to the bonus speed that makes any slowdown ineffective, you can at any time modify your build and adapt it to the enemies in front of you, or better still, the unpredictable dungeon you will have to face.

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Cross and delight, from procedural generation to the combat system

“Unpredictable” because the team has well thought of including one roguelite component in Nobody Saves the World, which we hated in the first half and loved in the second, once you have assimilated its mechanics and finally with powerful builds. Each dungeon, while maintaining its own thematic identity and some fixed elements, changes its face at each entrance and each death. While saving the progress obtained with the various challenges of the individual aspects (except in the main dungeons, where their progress is blocked), as well as the pre-boss teleportation, by dying you go to nullify the keys and unlocked doors – for example by killing a number of enemies.

As if that were not enough, some dungeons did very well on the first shot in terms of the structure of the area, on the second or third attempt they presented unfairly tedious backtracking sections, the result of a generation that by force of circumstances cannot always be impeccable. Quite right, mind you, as in any self-respecting roguelite, but in its early stages the game struggles to make itself understood by the player, and puts in front of him a whole series of mechanics initially confused or unnecessarily cumbersome, not to say at times even inexplicable.

Above all, but this is an unfortunately unsolvable defect, the absence of any diagonal attack, with a very unpleasant stiffness that forces you to hit only horizontally and vertically, requiring the player to fix the direction of the shot with the right trigger to be able to move while maintaining the line of attack without risking to change it at the last moment by mistake. There will certainly have been technical reasons, but we have played a lot of 2D games with 8-way attacks, so it’s really hard to justify such a choice, which even in the advanced stages led us to make unwanted mistakes.

Solvable by progressing, but even with some forcing too much, it is instead the absence of fairly basic elements in the combat system of an action / RPG: dodging, parrying or even healing are all skills exclusive to individual aspects and quite advanced, to the point that it will take a few hours to unlock them, and they will sacrifice a precious slot in the active arsenal of the protagonist.

Perhaps a sensible choice in light of the unique nature of the various aspects, as some are slower and able to absorb blows better and others faster and more snappy, but that has not really convinced us. Also because in the beginning it has complicated the game experience more than necessary, leading to frustration told a few lines above. If the intent to try something different from the usual and to spur the player to experiment with synergies and with the vast range of offensive skills is clear to us, at the same time the final result is a bit too difficult and punitive, at least in the early hours.

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Overcome the tiring initial stumbling block, complicated by a not so perfect balance that requires a few hours of grinding too much (however lightened by the always different and repeatable dungeons), Nobody Saves the World succeeds

finally to unleash all its potential and qualities, starting from its ability to distribute endorphins through the aforementioned challenges related to the aspects, or to the funny side missions (useful to give some color and make the tasks to be performed more varied) or even the writing always over the top and able to tear a smile. All this, however, to share in co-op with a friend – unfortunately only online and only on the same platform) – which doesn’t hurt in the least. We have not tested the online mode, having tried it pre-launch and being absent from matchmaking, but we will report any post-launch problems, should there be any.

What a beauty to see and hear!

The icing on the cake is undeniably the entire artistic sector, starting from the graphics with its explosion of colors that enhance the various biomes present or the curious design of the enemies, which when it does not try to be original, pays tribute to the past of gaming (or of Drinkbox itself). The style is as fresh as it is clumsy and deliberately caricatured, with shady figures equipped with fairy wings who increase our mana with obvious acting as drug dealers, repulsive slime sedimented on houses and creatures, crazy characters who will try to give us a hand along the way or hinder us. The game has a very strong identity, which offers breathtaking glimpses and monstrosities at every turn.

However, we were particularly struck by the music, created by the Canadian composer Jim Guthrie – formerly responsible for the soundrack of Superbrothers: Sword & Sorcery and that of Below (to learn more, here is the review of Below) – absolutely able to underline the peculiar atmosphere of each of the different areas into which the world of Nobody Saves is divided the World, unleashing tunes that can be printed in the player’s head within a few listening sessions.