Hey all! I’m back with a platformer I got a review copy of recently. It’s Mutant Mudds: Super Challenge!
Plot Synopsis: The game begins with a short cutscene. It shows two people, one of them, Max, the main protagonist, sitting in a small living room and playing a video game, until a large meteor suddenly hits. The scene fades to black, then shows a news station on TV reporting on a “Muddy” invasion, and equipped with only a water gun and a jetpack, Max goes to stop the Mutant Mudds not long after.
Plot: The plot is pretty nonexistent, but that isn’t supposed to be the real draw of the game, the gameplay is.
Gameplay: The gameplay is like classic platformers, and I mean that in every sense of that word. It’s highly difficult and the very first Trophy I unlocked was “One of Many” which happened to be unlocked about 30-60 seconds into the game, I had gone quickly away to grab a drink of water and I when I returned I ended up going into the aggro zone of the first enemy and was quickly killed. The gameplay is okay, but for those newer generation of gamers who were born after the early 1990’s they probably won’t appreciate the game much.
Frankly I don’t appreciate it all that much myself as I feel that games should be accessible and that difficulty should ramp up gradually rather than starting off as super difficult. Unfortunately for Mutant Mudds it does just that, and I wasn’t pleased to spend more than a few minutes to get past the first few obstacles that would have taken me only a few seconds if the game was made with a gradual difficulty curve. It might be a great nostalgia game for gamers who grew up with the SNES and other such platformers, but for people who grew up on the Gamecube or newer generation consoles, they won’t appreciate the instant difficulty of the game. Even the first few Mario games had a few easy levels that were simple to clear, and only started to get more difficult a few levels in.
Art: The art is classic 2D platformer, and while I appreciate it for it’s simplicity it does speak for the relative size of the game development team which is a really small team, if I read correctly on the research I did prior to writing this up, the entire team is three people, one programmer, one artist and one musician.
Music: The music is okay, but it’s nothing amazing either. It doesn’t have the classic feel of the older platformers or other games in that era like Final Fantasy.
Overall: For those gamers who loved the old platformers of the SNES era, Mutant Mudds is a great nostalgia trip. But for everyone else it will probably be a waste of time and money, even if it’s only $10.
For those who like: Classic Platformers, High Difficulty from the Start, Classic Artwork Styles.
Not for those who don’t like: Any of the above, particularly the difficulty.