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• gamedeal user

  Jan 29, 2018

  Teslagrad with jellybeans instead of magnets! A very weak yes, but a yes nonetheless. This Wii port is a 2009 remake of a particularly strange NES game designed by David Crane, the guy who made Pitfall. In both games, an evil tyrant king has taken over the planet of Blobolonia, and one of its citizens, a small white blob, crash-lands on Earth in search of help. He meets a random schoolboy who discovers that feeding jellybeans to the blob will give him various powers which, oddly enough, correspond to the jellybean’s flavor in some way (Tangerine = trampoline, apple = jack, and so on). Armed with nothing but a bottomless pocketful of jellybeans, the two heroes set off to the blob's homeworld to defeat the evil king. Whereas the original NES game was a non-linear treasure-hunting game like Pitfall, the remake has wisely chosen to be a level-based puzzle platformer. There's no shortage of anti-frustration features: unlimited lives, absolutely no penalty for death, and abundant level checkpoints. Jellybeans aren’t limited anymore; instead, you’re only allowed to use a specific subset of jellybean colors per level. Death doesn’t make you lose your treasures. Furthermore, you don’t have to worry about keeping the blob with you – if you call for the blob three times in a row, the blob will instantly turn into a balloon and come to you. It’s obvious to me that this wasn’t originally intended, as the levels are designed in such a way that it’s obvious you were meant not to lose track of the blob (like a companion cube), but I suppose the idea was ditched at the last minute in favor of making the game less annoying. Everything about the game’s artistry and presentation is stellar. The story is told with no dialogue. Soundtrack is fantastic. All of the worlds are beautiful in very different ways. Sprite animations are masterfully adorable, and some of the boss designs really took my breath away when I first saw them. There’s so much love that went into this game, so many cute little nods to the NES game, and so much attention to detail. I especially liked that all of the jellybean color puns were kept in, although they’re never explicitly spelled out for you, but you’ll notice them if you’re familiar with the old game. Controls are decent. You can toss your jellybean around at any trajectory you want, which quickly becomes quite important. There’s a button to center the camera on the blob, which is invaluable in some of the harder levels. There’s also a dedicated button to hug the blob, which is useless (except to get one of the achievements) and a “scold” button, which is actually quite important, as it makes the blob stop jumping around, making it much easier to solve certain puzzles with precision. This game has a lot going for it, but there’s just one little problem: the gameplay. To put it bluntly, the game progression is agonizingly SLOW. It takes a century just to do a simple task, because every little thing in the game requires four different button presses: one to call the blob, one to choose a jellybean, one to throw the jellybean, and then one to do whatever you needed to do in the first place. If the blob happens to be stuck somewhere, you have to call it three times in a row, wait for the balloon to catch up to you, then call it once more to get it out of balloon form. You have to do this every time, all four button presses, for each individual transformation, dozens of times per level. Make sure you map all the buttons to something you’re comfortable with, or you’ll get really frustrated constantly getting them confused. Puzzle design is very weak. 75% of the time, it’s obvious what you need to do, but it requires really annoying precision, and sometimes it will take dozens of tries just to execute it correctly, and [i]lots and lots[/i] of waiting. Now, I love it when a puzzle game is annoying in such a way that it forces you to re-evaluate the game mechanics and fully understand them, at which point it becomes satisfyingly easy. And to the game’s credit, sometimes it does this - sometimes a puzzle will be really irritating if you’re trying to do it the hard way, until you realize how to do it the easy way (particularly on the bird boss, where a genius trick makes the whole fight trivial). Other times, the game will give you a wonderful lateral-thinking puzzle that only this game could have pulled off. But the [i]majority[/i] of the time, the puzzles just require annoying precision, and it’s as simple as that. Puzzles involving dozens of transformations will feel like they take an eternity, and if you screw up and die, you have to start the puzzle all over. In beating many of the game’s challenges, I mostly felt an overwhelming sense of [i]relief[/i] that it was over with and I’d never need to do it again. Furthermore, the game doesn’t spell out its rules very well. It never teaches you how to toss a jellybean, you need to figure that out on your own. It never teaches you how to whistle-call. It never teaches you how to apply the Scold button or the blob-cam, which become practically required to understand in the bonus levels. Sometimes you need to be standing on a treasure chest to collect it, and sometimes the blob can do it remotely, and there’s no way to differentiate the cases. There’s a puzzle where you need to infer that you can jump into a cannon sitting on spikes, and another one where the ladder’s behavior is changed specifically for one place in the entire game, and many places where the physics will wonk out in unintuitive ways and ruin your solution if you haven’t figured out the minute quirks of the physics engine, making it seem like the intended solution isn’t working. This is a curious case of game difficulty: it’s always either too easy, or too frustrating, and there’s never a middle ground. Maybe a middle ground doesn’t exist; maybe the developers really did make the best possible remake of A Boy and His Blob, but the best possible remake is simply a subpar game experience. But it’s obvious that a lot of thought and rebalancing went into this game, and it could have been so, so much worse, and I can’t help but appreciate that they really did their best; look at some of the unlockable bonus features and it becomes quite clear how much heartfelt planning and characterization went into this. Despite everything, I think it’s a remake that deserves to exist. In all, I give this game a 10/10 in presentation, art, and music, and 10/10 as a remake of a weird old NES game. But overall, I give it a 6/10. The gameplay is an irritating exercise in patience, [i]especially[/i] the bonus challenges, and you’ll be nothing but relieved when it’s all over. But if you’re the kind of person who liked Teslagrad, you’ll probably like this, too. I think that the charm, the cuteness, the art and the music really are worth slogging through the journey, and there really is a huge sense of accomplishment (and maybe a pulled heartstring or two) when it’s all over. Completionists: it takes about 15 hours to 100%, depending on how much trouble you have on some of the irritating bonus levels.
• gamedeal user

  Jan 20, 2016

  One of the first games I ever played on the Wii, enjoyed it on there and now loving it on the pc port! Pros: - Beautiful graphics - Cute characters - Fun story line - Easy controls - You can hug the blob Cons: - Sometimes what you have to do and where you have to go next can be a bit vague A Boy and his blob is a game about friendship. You start off with a meteor falling from the sky so you go to investigate. Once you get to the crash site this white blob jumps out from the meteor and at first you are scared of it but then you become curious and become frends! Once you get back to your treehouse base a jar of beans on the table next to your bed falls over and a single black bean falls out. The blob eats it and turns into a ladder allowing you to climb up to a higher level of your base. Throughout the game you will collect many different coloured beans that each allow the blob to change into a different form. You will need to use these to overcome obsticles and to safely get a boy and his blob to their next destination. Also did I mention you can hug the blob?
• gamedeal user

  Jan 20, 2016

  A pretty decent port of an underrated and largely forgotten remake of a mostly ignored and forgotten classic. It has a "hug Blob" button, what more do you need?
• gamedeal user

  Jan 20, 2016

  I bought this knowing it was pure nostalgia. I wasn't disappointed. The gameplay is smooth and the updated version of the mechanics is perfect. I can run this in 4k with 21:9 ratio. Im so impressed with how smoothly and gracefully this game transitioned from Wii to Steam. 10/10 must own! Don't forget to hug Blob!
• gamedeal user

  Sep 20, 2018

  Ah memories, good old memories. And therefore you came. For the Blob and the Jelly Beans. Maybe also for the cute graphics, the atmospheric music and the fun puzzles. Check out my video review https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RNl4NWyAbA
• gamedeal user

  May 4, 2016

  A spiritual remake of a great NES game I played once upon a time. This one is more of a spiritual success as a lot of the gameplay is different. But the jellybeans are still there! This is not a hardcore action platformer but more of a artistic slow paced puzzle game through different worlds. Don't forget to hug your blob often!
• gamedeal user

  Jan 21, 2016

  I bought and played the original 'A Boy and His Blob' (Trouble on Blobolonia) when it was new. I loved it. I could only beat it with a Game Genie, though. I bought and played through the Wii version, also. I loved it for different reasons. One of them being: You can beat it without a Game Genie. This appears to be a faithful and stable port of the Wii version. I find the game incredibly nostalgic and lovely in many ways. This is likely the influence of the game's director, Sean Velasco (The director and designer of Shovel Knight). Sure it is more linear and not as challenging as the original. But it captures the soul of AB&HB and presents it in a more light-hearted (and finishable) package. Skip one trip to Starbucks this week and give it a whirl.
• gamedeal user

  Dec 12, 2020

  Deep down, I really, really love this game. It's one of my childhood games. It's adorable, the morphing blob concept is great, and some parts are really fun. But man... does it have some of the most annoying platforming I have ever experienced. If your position is off by a fraction of a pixel or your timing is a millisecond off, you will plunge into spike pits and get eaten by evil blobs over... and over.. and over. It does not help that the controls are not particularly responsive (at least, I do not find them to be). To say nothing of the boss battles, which are even more tedious. It gets really frustrating. If you like cute things and have lots of patience, it can be fun. Or you might just give up after having to repeat the same section ten times in a row. It's one of those games that I hesitate to give either a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down because the first half is really fun, but as the game progresses I feel like the frustration outweighs the fun.
• gamedeal user

  Jan 20, 2016

  A Boy and His blob, originally on the nintendo Wii makes it rounds to other platforms, including PC this year, after a long time of being exclusive to the Nintendo console. Quite possibly one of the most charming games I have ever played also on the Nintendo Wii. A Boy and His Blob is simply put a game about a lone boy who happens to come across a space blob, reminiscent of Gleep and Gloop from the Herculoids. Almost instantly and without any influencing factors the boy and the blob create a bond. I mean even Elliot and E.T. had to work up to each other, and not without the help of some Reeses Pieces. The game takes place in a varying set of locations including forests, caverns, and more, made up with different levels. Each level features both platforming and puzzle challenges throughout as well as an assortment of enemy creatures also similar to our sidekick, the Blob. If you've ever played the original NES classic, you'll feel right at home with the games main feature, being that blob can transform into different objects through the consumption of different flavored jellybeans. This may again be somewhat of a throwback to E.T., though I don't know. You control the boy, and do the platforming, and feed the blob jellybeans and he transforms. The different objects the blob can transform into include things like ladders, trampolines, bubbles, and more. And each stage has a different set of jellybeans to help solve the different puzzles and even find hidden areas throughout. The platforming may lean a little more to the challenging side as opposed to being relaxed, as the "boy" does not have a very high jump. Luckily he does have air control. But his very small jump arc means jumping over some gaps and enemies requires good timing. It's not a constant thing, but you'll see how important it is in the very first stage. The game is extremely pleasant and magical looking, featuring hand-drawn characters and environments, and has said to have drawn "inspiration from a number of sources, including the films of Hayao Miyazaki.". The music is equally enchanting featuring some nice relaxing medleys of both original pieces and even something for the fans of the original NES game. I did not want to make a big long review for the game itself but rather sum it up briefly. It's a great game! It's faithful to the original NES game in some ways, while still bringing its own originality and flavor to the new (when it came to the Wii) title. I actually wanted to instead discuss how the port is. So, how is it? Well, I'm really mixed on this one. Controls: The controls are all fully mappable on both keyboard and controller. This is a plus. I'm glad to see they did not take the easy way. There is no need to go into any menus either to switch between keyboard or controller. Just pick up and use whichever method of control you prefer. Graphic settings: This is where I'm a bit torn. There's not much here. You can change the resolution which is great. You can change the game from fullscreen to windowed to even borderless windowed, which is fantastic! But that is where it ends. I honestly did not expect things like aliasing options to be implemented. I mean the game looks fine on its own without the need for an aliasing option. Well maybe for the far background, but it's not a big deal. No, what bugs me instead is the lack of v-sync. A v-sync option is badly needed for this title. Right off the bat you can see screen tearing here and there. It's not a game breaking flaw, but for some people it is going to call a cause for complaints and gripes. And you know those people are going to be vocal about it. I personally would love to see a v-snc option patched in. Luckily some cards come with the option to force v-sync into games. But there are still some people playing without graphics cards who will see this as an issue. In any case, v-sync issue aside, this is a wonderful port, and any fan of the original NES classic or someone who missed this title on the Wii should give this game a try.
• gamedeal user

  May 29, 2023

  A beautiful and beautifully made puzzle platformer remaking the not-so-equally beautiful puzzle platformer of the same name on the NES. Having played it on the Wii as a kid and never truly appreciating the level design, game design, mechanics, and interactions, it's lovely to know my enjoyment was not misplaced due to me being so young. The game is still as fun as ever and is incredibly well put together. 10/10, though that might be my rose-colored glasses speaking.