After the lesser know Game Boy sequel to the NES original, this series has constantly had sequels announced, and all of them were canceled. This is the first time (after the GB game) a sequel was announced where it actually came out. While it was a beloved classic, the original A Boy and his Blob was also a really tough and hard to play game because of its various quirks.

So does this new game follow the original closely, or does it give a new spin on things, being on a completely new console?

Read on and see!
(Yes, the review for this is really late… kinda forgot the game existed for a while there)

Developer: WayForward
Publisher: Majesco Games
Date of Release: October 13th 2009

Platforms: Wii

Genre: Puzzle Platformer
Players: 1
Rated E for Everyone

Looks and sounds
The game starts up with a really well drawn and animated cinematic introduction showing of all of boy’s and blob’s moves. It’s filled with action, it looks incredible and it’s just really fun to watch. No joking here: if they made an actual Boy and his Blob cartoon series using that same high-quality animation, I’d definitely watch it. Then you get to the game…. and holy shit, it looks just as good as the intro cinematic. The graphics are really really good here. The game is colorful, the animations are very detailed and smooth, and everything looks really great. I have no complaints whatsoever for the game’s graphics.

Sound-wise it’s okay. You’ll quickly get annoyed of boy calling blob non-stop because of blobs crappy path-finding. The music is okay, nothing great… Not much to say about this one in the sound department really.

Gameplay
After the fast-paced action in the opening cinematic, you realize that the gameplay here is a lot slower than what you see in the cinematic. Not that that’s a bad thing, of course, just something I wanted to note here.

Here you control only boy. He can jump, though not very high and not very far. Since the game has a lot of high cliffs, high jumps, walls to destroy, and many other things, boy isn’t very well equipped to do anything. That’s where blob comes in. Each level in the game gives you a selection of jellybeans. Each jellybean will transform blob into different things. Balls, holes, cannons, trampolines, parachutes, a big ball that boy can use to travel faster, anvils, ladders, rockets… amongst other things. Every level is based on the selection of jellybeans you are given. Got a high platform to jump to? A ladder can work. If it’s higher, the trampolines will get you there. An enemy is in your way? If the platform he’s on is thin enough, you can place a hole to make it fall into. If you’re on a higher platform, making blob into an anvil and pushing him to make him fall on the enemy might kill him. A frog enemy? Turn blob into a ball, make him get eaten by the frog and call him back, making the frog explode. I could go on with various examples, but that’s not the point of this post.

Each level has 3 chests you can find. So for completionists, there’s more to the game than just getting to the end of the level. The chests are mostly off the level’s normal path, and require solving different puzzles. It also raises the difficulty a bit since the chests are usually a lot tougher to get than just reaching the end of the level. Getting all 3 chests adds an artifact in the current “hub” you’re in. In addition to decorating the hub areas, each complete artifact gives you access to a “challenge” level, which are, obviously, a bit on the tougher side. Those challenge levels give various rewards. Mostly concept art, videos and other things like that, which is pretty cool.

One thing I’ll mention quickly is the boss battles. There’s not much to talk about, but I’ll say that they’re very well done. Each requires cool use of blob’s power. They’re not too tough, and after dying 2-3 times at most you’ll figure out exactly what you need to do and destroy them.

The difficulty… Well, this game is really easy. The first world is a big tutorial. The second one still gives big hints as to what to do next. Only by the third world does it start getting tougher. But the game is never really tough, because you have infinite lives. When you die, and it doesn’t happen much, you respawn just before the part that killed you. Jumped in water by error? Well, you’ll respawn right next to the hole you feel into. Died before one of those tough parachute segments? You start at the top of the cliff, ready to jump down again. The puzzles themselves are really self-explanatory. Once you figure out how to deal with a certain obstacle,you’ll clear it easily the next few times you encounter it. The bosses are a bit tougher than the actual levels, but not by much. In the end it’s a very easy game.

One big problem I have in the game is the blob… Once you give him a jellybean, he stays stuck in that form until you call him to you. That’s perfectly fine by me. But when you call him, he has lots of trouble finding you. Unless you’re straight in front of him, and not too high away, he’ll just wander around aimlessly. Sometimes he’ll be on a platform with a wall on one side, and an opening on the other that leads down a hole right next to you. Instead of going towards that opening, he’ll just jump towards the wall… It’s really annoying. For some reason he has really bad path-finding issues. This is half-fixed by a certain mechanic, where, if you call him 3-4 times in a row, he’ll transform into a balloon, passing through walls to get to you, and then you have to call him again so he can take his normal form again. It’s a bit better with that, but it’s still annoying having boy constantly screaming like a moron until blob gets to him.

Overall
It’s a fun game. It diverges from the original game. Instead of an “open-world” or “metroid-like” idea, it goes for level-based progress instead. So it’s a lot more straight-forward. And I think the level-based progress is a lot better than the open-world… the gameplay just lends itself to that a lot better.

And the game is quite easy. The first world and a half, out of 4, is basically a big tutorial. Afterwards the challenge does rise a bit, but it never gets into really hard territory, and figuring out what to do is always simple. That’s both a good and a bad thing. It makes the game a lot more accessible, but at the same time veteran gamers might not have as much fun with it since it’s so easy. Make no mistake though, the gameplay is really well done.

It’s a fun game, well worth playing for fans of the series and newcomers alike.

Pros/Cons
Pros
- Great graphics and animation
- Fun to play
- Simple gameplay

Cons
- Very easy (can be considered a good thing for some people)
- Blob has a lot of trouble finding you when you call him, even if you’re just under him

The Save Factor
I’m… not sure what the current(as of the writing of this review) starting price of this game is, since I’ve seen both $30 and $40… I feel the Save Factor for this one is around $25.

jobocan Console, Games, Review, impressions, wii