Mail Mole is a charming 3D platformer featuring Molty, the fastest delivery mole, in his quest to save Carrotland from disaster! Explore magical worlds, make new friends, race against Mecha-Moles, find collectibles, solve puzzles and deliver awesomeness to the end of the world!
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I've been itching for a good 3d platformer lately and this one kind of seemed like a potential sleeper to me, and yeah, it was alright. The graphics in this game are the opposite of something to write home about but hey, I'm here for the gameplay, not the graphics. I was hoping it was a little more challenging and kinda more short burst like celeste-y but it's definitely a bit more Mario 3D World-esque. The game this reminds me of most is New Super Lucky Tale, especially with the digging mechanic, but a lot less creative and polished, but also slightly more difficult. So yeah. Not a must-play by any means but probably worth checking out if you like 3d platformers as much as I do
Fun little game. There were a ton more levels than I initially thought, so you get a lot of content here. As for negatives, I found the music a bit generic and sometimes the jumping and boosting felt clunky, but it worked pretty well overall.
I had the opportunity to play Koa and the 5 pirates before Mail Mole. It’s made by the same developer and the games are very similar in terms of controls, gameplay and structure. The differences are Mail Mole is less polished for being the first game and it’s a bit more challenging. Its style is also more reminiscent of old school platformers for being about animals instead of humans.
The controls are very unique. This isn’t your typical platformer. It can be a positive or a negative depending on what you’re looking for. The game is about creating the perfect momentum for speed and overcoming obstacles to finish a level. You can collect 3 strawberries or try to get a gold medal if you’re fast enough. The game has a lot of content if you include the gold medals and play the 2 free DLC. There are no achievements for the DLC which is a good thing. It looks charming and it sounds right.
So what makes Mail Mole less polished and more challenging? You lose a bit of control when you commit to a boost in speed. Koa accounts for this by making the levels less punishing, allowing you to jump separately from boost, and giving you more time to get the gold medals. Mail Mole expects more perfection by having more traps and death pits. There will be more awkward situations where your boost is not enough to get to certain spots, halting pacing and only accepting specific ways of getting there. The game can also look a bit rough graphically in certain spots although it’s not needed for a game like this. Then there is one bad design decision and minor bugs. You’re not allowed to retry a level without losing your progress the first time you do it. You have to return to the hub world, select the level again and then you can restart without fears of losing the strawberries you collected. The bugs are few but a bit annoying even if they’re not game breaking. Every time you boot up the game, you’re forced to see the last patch notes. You will also see notes for every DLC you’ve downloaded. I haven’t found a way to turn these notes off. The Lost Presents DLC doesn’t work if you load from your main save file but will work if you use a new save file.
Mail Mole might be a bit rough around the edges but I find its style a bit more appealing. If you want a more difficult Koa, want more of that gameplay style or want to see how it started, then this is worth looking into. The game is for a specific audience and a bit more difficult to get into compared to Koa. It took me 14 hours for the main game plus a couple of hours playing the DLC. I’m impressed how both DLC are offered for free. They’re pretty substantial and worth playing. So don’t forget to grab them after completing the main game.
The controls are very unique. This isn’t your typical platformer. It can be a positive or a negative depending on what you’re looking for. The game is about creating the perfect momentum for speed and overcoming obstacles to finish a level. You can collect 3 strawberries or try to get a gold medal if you’re fast enough. The game has a lot of content if you include the gold medals and play the 2 free DLC. There are no achievements for the DLC which is a good thing. It looks charming and it sounds right.
So what makes Mail Mole less polished and more challenging? You lose a bit of control when you commit to a boost in speed. Koa accounts for this by making the levels less punishing, allowing you to jump separately from boost, and giving you more time to get the gold medals. Mail Mole expects more perfection by having more traps and death pits. There will be more awkward situations where your boost is not enough to get to certain spots, halting pacing and only accepting specific ways of getting there. The game can also look a bit rough graphically in certain spots although it’s not needed for a game like this. Then there is one bad design decision and minor bugs. You’re not allowed to retry a level without losing your progress the first time you do it. You have to return to the hub world, select the level again and then you can restart without fears of losing the strawberries you collected. The bugs are few but a bit annoying even if they’re not game breaking. Every time you boot up the game, you’re forced to see the last patch notes. You will also see notes for every DLC you’ve downloaded. I haven’t found a way to turn these notes off. The Lost Presents DLC doesn’t work if you load from your main save file but will work if you use a new save file.
Mail Mole might be a bit rough around the edges but I find its style a bit more appealing. If you want a more difficult Koa, want more of that gameplay style or want to see how it started, then this is worth looking into. The game is for a specific audience and a bit more difficult to get into compared to Koa. It took me 14 hours for the main game plus a couple of hours playing the DLC. I’m impressed how both DLC are offered for free. They’re pretty substantial and worth playing. So don’t forget to grab them after completing the main game.
It's a cute platformer with an interesting enough gimmick to stand out from the games it tries to emulate (A Hat in Time, Super Mario Galaxy, etc.) The "race" style levels were definitely my favorite and are reminiscent of the tongue surfing from SpongeBob: Battle for Bikini Bottom.
Mail Mole himself is really cute, so it's unfortunate that most of the time he's on screen he's underground and not actually readily visible. The inclusion of un-skippable cutscenes and having the game force you back to the hub world after completing a stage for the first time also made it a lot harder to quickly restart a level to try for a better time or collect all the radishes.
At first I found the controls really frustrating, but as soon as I switched to using a controller I had a lot more fun and once I got the hang of it I could actually see myself going back to previous levels to speedrun them.
In the end, Molty the Mail Mole was able to deliver my mail on time and looked very cute doing so.
Mail Mole himself is really cute, so it's unfortunate that most of the time he's on screen he's underground and not actually readily visible. The inclusion of un-skippable cutscenes and having the game force you back to the hub world after completing a stage for the first time also made it a lot harder to quickly restart a level to try for a better time or collect all the radishes.
At first I found the controls really frustrating, but as soon as I switched to using a controller I had a lot more fun and once I got the hang of it I could actually see myself going back to previous levels to speedrun them.
In the end, Molty the Mail Mole was able to deliver my mail on time and looked very cute doing so.
Delivering mail was harder than I thought
This little guy was called during his vacation to come into work and save the day and he still put 100% even when everyone else could have stepped up. Classic case of Postal Workers being taken advantage of.