"A powerful ancient evil has arisen, and the war to save humanity has begun! The Mummy Demastered throws you into a 16-bit-inspired battle against the undead in a 2D, nonlinear, action-packed adventure. As an elite agent in the monster-hunting Prodigium organization, you must use a variety of weapons, upgrades, and mysterious artifacts to defend mankind against the supernatural hordes of Princess Ahmanet. Your Prodigium unit is already on the scene, but HQ lost contact with them hours ago. Only by exploring tombs, forests, abandoned tunnels, and the cursed streets of London will you discover the fate of your allies. But beware - Ahmanet commands legions of undead, insects, plague-ridden vermin, and worse! If you're not careful, you'll be the next soul in her army."
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Great Licensed Metroid-like. Probably better than the source material.
It's weirdly nostalgic, giving some 16bit atmospheric shooter vibes like Metroid, Alien 3, Jurassic Park...
The least interesting part is dying and having the Corpse[s] Run Mechanic, which is kinda forced upon players with save points not being healing points too. When you die you have to recover every item and weapon by killing your zombiefied self.
It's weirdly nostalgic, giving some 16bit atmospheric shooter vibes like Metroid, Alien 3, Jurassic Park...
The least interesting part is dying and having the Corpse[s] Run Mechanic, which is kinda forced upon players with save points not being healing points too. When you die you have to recover every item and weapon by killing your zombiefied self.
Extremely extremely strange that Warner Bros got WayFoward to make a Metroidvania based off of the Tom Cruise Mummy movie in 2017 and it was GOOD. It's not amazing, it's short and sweet but like it all works well and I had a good time. Worst part is having to kill your past self to get your shit back. That wouldn't be a problem if you kept your health upgrades, but you DON'T so you can just get 2 shot by enemies late game while trying to get your shit back. It sucked. But still, it's short enough to where that doesn't matter. It's pretty good. I also got it for like 5 bucks along with 2 other games though so that may be swaying my opinion. Who's to say?
I think all the positive buzz I heard about this was mainly just due to the connection with WayForward & the fact we got another one of the rare "pretty good tie-in games", so I think my expectations may have been set too high. This isn't a bad game by any stretch, the art direction & soundtrack are really wonderfully done if not even remotely resembling the movie it's based off of, but there were lots of little annoyances that piled up on me to the point where I just wanted to play a better Metroidvania.
The biggest, most constant hurdle for me was the very slippery controls; it always felt like a stop/start way of moving throughout the game & like I would slide off of ledges I'm trying to jump on. Obviously, for a genre the involves quick movement & tight controls this started to become really grating. Add to this very precise windows for damage & I got more frustrated as I went along. It's still a relatively fun platformer, but there were enough little issues that I'm not sure when I'd come back to it.
The biggest, most constant hurdle for me was the very slippery controls; it always felt like a stop/start way of moving throughout the game & like I would slide off of ledges I'm trying to jump on. Obviously, for a genre the involves quick movement & tight controls this started to become really grating. Add to this very precise windows for damage & I got more frustrated as I went along. It's still a relatively fun platformer, but there were enough little issues that I'm not sure when I'd come back to it.
A non-mobile movie tie-in video game is a pretty uncommon sight these days, let alone one that's a critically well recieved Metroidvania from WayForward of Shantae fame. I love me some Metroidvanias, so I picked it up for $14 when it was on sale this Halloween. I finally sat down and finished it yesterday and it was a very alright game Xp . I finished it in just under 4 hours with no deaths.
One of the main draws of this game is the fairly unique death mechanic. Because you're not a named character and just some faceless agent, when you die you are DEAD, as far the story is concerned. A new agent has to come in and take your place, and the old dead agent is now a victim of the Mummy's curse and you'll need to take them down the next time you go through that area. Maybe I was just trying not to die a bit too much, but I didn't really think the game was particularly hard, as I managed to do a no-deaths run of the game my first time through despite never seeing any footage of it before playing it, and I'll be the first to admit that I'm far from the best at Metroidvanias despite how much I like them. The death mechanic is neat, but I can only really give a hearsay description of it having never experienced it myself Xp . However, on a related note, because you're a faceless procession of soldiers, the game doesn't have any named characters or actual characters of any description. The story is basically non-existant short of a very bare-bones "go kill evil Mummy" plot. It's serviceable, but it's another mark against this game in an era where there are so many good Metroidvanias out there with excellent narratives.
The game plays like a WayForward take on Metroid. You don't have a melee weapon like Shantae's hair (the only Shantae game I've played is the first one that was on DSiWare that I thought was pretty bad, for the record), but you have a rifle with unlimited ammo that you can fire in 8 directions. The only issue with this is that your rifle bullets are kinda weak but also very small projectiles, and given that the spaces you're in are quite cramped, the enemies are often fairly small and/or quick as well as decently tanky, and fighting enemies is a real pain quite often. The most difficult part of the game isn't the bosses, it's the really annoying (but fairly low number of) enemy types throughout the game. Like Metroid has missiles for more damage, you can find new guns to use that use ammo enemies drop, and those guns are generally way better than your infinite-ammo peashooter. The combat is alright, but I thought it was just okay considering all the other great 2D run-and-gun action games out there that have such less frustrating enemy design and placement.
The world design is a bit odd, but I think that has to do with how your character moves. The corridors you go down feel really claustrophobic, but not in an anxiety-inducing way, but more in a "these are annoying to navigate" kind of way. You're constantly hitting your head trying to jump around because of how tall your character is, and the placement of platforms in some of the larger rooms had me retreading them quite often to go back up and do it again because I bumped my head on the ceiling. You can find extra bandoleers (I guess your soldier just wears dozens of them eventually? XD) just like missile tanks and extra med kits just like energy tanks around the world to increase your max ammo (for all weapons) and health (by 99, exactly like Metroid), but this game has no hidden walls that I could find. If you can see a room to get into, you can get into it. You dont' need to spend time whacking at every wall you see hoping it'll be hiding a secret, which is kind of a nice change of pace in a Metroidvania for once. The level design becomes more managable once you get a few power ups, but even then its still quite frustrating because of the nature of those power ups (you never get a wall-jump or a double-jump, unfortunately :/ ).
The last thing I wanna mention is the Switch port of the game. This game runs pretty badly on Switch. It's a quite nice-looking pixel-art design, but all the moving backgrounds combined with the moving enemies on screen make the framerate stutter like CRAZY very often, which is a bit of a problem in an action game like this as you can imagine. It's never a problem with bosses, as screens don't usually scroll in most boss fights, but it makes the annoying enemy types that much more annoying when your button presses are lagging behind a stuttering framerate. Regardless, the fact that the enemy types are so annoying, the platforming can be so irritating, and there is actually NO WAY to heal your health other than picking up drops from enemies or picking up another med kit/E-Tank, means the difficult of the game feels more artificial than legitimate. The game WANTS you to die because it wants you to see the neat death mechanic, but it doesn't feel its doing it in regards to legitimate challenge so much as it is purposefully clumsy game design.
Verdict: Hesitantly Recommended. The Mummy: Demastered isn't a bad game, but it's a very underwhelming game for the gaming ecosystem it exists in. As a 4-hour Metroidvania on the same system that sports Hollow Knight, it is a really tough sell at its normal MSRP of $20 when you factor in its clunky design, bad port job, and non-existent story. You can do a lot better with your $20 on Switch if you're looking for a Metroidvania or really a good indie game in general. This game is an interesting novelty as a good movie tie-in from 2017, but not a game that is a must-play by any standard other than that.
One of the main draws of this game is the fairly unique death mechanic. Because you're not a named character and just some faceless agent, when you die you are DEAD, as far the story is concerned. A new agent has to come in and take your place, and the old dead agent is now a victim of the Mummy's curse and you'll need to take them down the next time you go through that area. Maybe I was just trying not to die a bit too much, but I didn't really think the game was particularly hard, as I managed to do a no-deaths run of the game my first time through despite never seeing any footage of it before playing it, and I'll be the first to admit that I'm far from the best at Metroidvanias despite how much I like them. The death mechanic is neat, but I can only really give a hearsay description of it having never experienced it myself Xp . However, on a related note, because you're a faceless procession of soldiers, the game doesn't have any named characters or actual characters of any description. The story is basically non-existant short of a very bare-bones "go kill evil Mummy" plot. It's serviceable, but it's another mark against this game in an era where there are so many good Metroidvanias out there with excellent narratives.
The game plays like a WayForward take on Metroid. You don't have a melee weapon like Shantae's hair (the only Shantae game I've played is the first one that was on DSiWare that I thought was pretty bad, for the record), but you have a rifle with unlimited ammo that you can fire in 8 directions. The only issue with this is that your rifle bullets are kinda weak but also very small projectiles, and given that the spaces you're in are quite cramped, the enemies are often fairly small and/or quick as well as decently tanky, and fighting enemies is a real pain quite often. The most difficult part of the game isn't the bosses, it's the really annoying (but fairly low number of) enemy types throughout the game. Like Metroid has missiles for more damage, you can find new guns to use that use ammo enemies drop, and those guns are generally way better than your infinite-ammo peashooter. The combat is alright, but I thought it was just okay considering all the other great 2D run-and-gun action games out there that have such less frustrating enemy design and placement.
The world design is a bit odd, but I think that has to do with how your character moves. The corridors you go down feel really claustrophobic, but not in an anxiety-inducing way, but more in a "these are annoying to navigate" kind of way. You're constantly hitting your head trying to jump around because of how tall your character is, and the placement of platforms in some of the larger rooms had me retreading them quite often to go back up and do it again because I bumped my head on the ceiling. You can find extra bandoleers (I guess your soldier just wears dozens of them eventually? XD) just like missile tanks and extra med kits just like energy tanks around the world to increase your max ammo (for all weapons) and health (by 99, exactly like Metroid), but this game has no hidden walls that I could find. If you can see a room to get into, you can get into it. You dont' need to spend time whacking at every wall you see hoping it'll be hiding a secret, which is kind of a nice change of pace in a Metroidvania for once. The level design becomes more managable once you get a few power ups, but even then its still quite frustrating because of the nature of those power ups (you never get a wall-jump or a double-jump, unfortunately :/ ).
The last thing I wanna mention is the Switch port of the game. This game runs pretty badly on Switch. It's a quite nice-looking pixel-art design, but all the moving backgrounds combined with the moving enemies on screen make the framerate stutter like CRAZY very often, which is a bit of a problem in an action game like this as you can imagine. It's never a problem with bosses, as screens don't usually scroll in most boss fights, but it makes the annoying enemy types that much more annoying when your button presses are lagging behind a stuttering framerate. Regardless, the fact that the enemy types are so annoying, the platforming can be so irritating, and there is actually NO WAY to heal your health other than picking up drops from enemies or picking up another med kit/E-Tank, means the difficult of the game feels more artificial than legitimate. The game WANTS you to die because it wants you to see the neat death mechanic, but it doesn't feel its doing it in regards to legitimate challenge so much as it is purposefully clumsy game design.
Verdict: Hesitantly Recommended. The Mummy: Demastered isn't a bad game, but it's a very underwhelming game for the gaming ecosystem it exists in. As a 4-hour Metroidvania on the same system that sports Hollow Knight, it is a really tough sell at its normal MSRP of $20 when you factor in its clunky design, bad port job, and non-existent story. You can do a lot better with your $20 on Switch if you're looking for a Metroidvania or really a good indie game in general. This game is an interesting novelty as a good movie tie-in from 2017, but not a game that is a must-play by any standard other than that.
The Mummy Demastered is excellent. It's almost a joke; the derivative being better than the product it's based upon.
Games based on movies tend to be awful, so much so, there are very few that stand out as great. The Mummy Demastered has no right to be as good as it is, being based on a heavily panned movie that flopped so badly that it killed the cinematic universe it tried to jumpstart.
The soundtrack is also full of bangers, with some nostalgia-feel songs that work well with the surprisingly plumbed environments which blend seamlessly. The graphics are great and blend Egyptian mythology perfectly into a contemporary British setting that worked around the limits of the movie. It genuinely feels like Ahmanet is invading, with London streets covered in sand. Mummies rise alongside contemporary zombies, templar knights and skeletons. Locusts make for great fodder enemies as well as a means to work in a persistent Egyptian theme, and bosses are based on Egyptian deities and myths.
The metroidvania elements blend perfectly with a rogue-lite system. Dying results in a new agent being sent out and having to recover upgrades from the zombified former player character. The later in the game things get, the more deadly the predecessor becomes. Upgrades feel like upgrades, with a variety of weapons, artifacts and subweapons. Finding a new weapon in a barricaded room feels so satisfying, especially when it comes to learning what works effectively on different enemies.
Do I have any gripes? Not particularly. The metroidvania elements are superb, but there aren't any hidden rooms in the standard sense. The sealed rooms are closer to Metroid's doors that require a missile or beam. An upgrade later destroys walls, but as a means of creating a convenient path with very few secrets to be found like this.
The relics felt a little tedious, as they are little more than a rising number found in random containers, with no real variety or lore tied to them (but, then again, the movie it was based upon was as deep as a soup spoon, so...)
I feel a little sad that the franchise is dead in the water and dragged down any hopes of a sequel to this game with it. I would've loved to have seen different mythologies being tackled and how this would effect gameplay.
The game is short, so it definitely does not outstay its welcome. But it's an excellent experience, especially with challenges like trying to get through the game with one agent.
Wholly recommended as a game to blast through in a few short days, and it's worth going back to after a few years.
Games based on movies tend to be awful, so much so, there are very few that stand out as great. The Mummy Demastered has no right to be as good as it is, being based on a heavily panned movie that flopped so badly that it killed the cinematic universe it tried to jumpstart.
The soundtrack is also full of bangers, with some nostalgia-feel songs that work well with the surprisingly plumbed environments which blend seamlessly. The graphics are great and blend Egyptian mythology perfectly into a contemporary British setting that worked around the limits of the movie. It genuinely feels like Ahmanet is invading, with London streets covered in sand. Mummies rise alongside contemporary zombies, templar knights and skeletons. Locusts make for great fodder enemies as well as a means to work in a persistent Egyptian theme, and bosses are based on Egyptian deities and myths.
The metroidvania elements blend perfectly with a rogue-lite system. Dying results in a new agent being sent out and having to recover upgrades from the zombified former player character. The later in the game things get, the more deadly the predecessor becomes. Upgrades feel like upgrades, with a variety of weapons, artifacts and subweapons. Finding a new weapon in a barricaded room feels so satisfying, especially when it comes to learning what works effectively on different enemies.
Do I have any gripes? Not particularly. The metroidvania elements are superb, but there aren't any hidden rooms in the standard sense. The sealed rooms are closer to Metroid's doors that require a missile or beam. An upgrade later destroys walls, but as a means of creating a convenient path with very few secrets to be found like this.
The relics felt a little tedious, as they are little more than a rising number found in random containers, with no real variety or lore tied to them (but, then again, the movie it was based upon was as deep as a soup spoon, so...)
I feel a little sad that the franchise is dead in the water and dragged down any hopes of a sequel to this game with it. I would've loved to have seen different mythologies being tackled and how this would effect gameplay.
The game is short, so it definitely does not outstay its welcome. But it's an excellent experience, especially with challenges like trying to get through the game with one agent.
Wholly recommended as a game to blast through in a few short days, and it's worth going back to after a few years.
I’m sorry but I couldn’t with this one. I love Metroidvanias and WayForward, but this just has too many frustrating and outdated design decisions, even for 2017. I got soft locked in the final area thanks to the death system which clearly wasn’t tested, and didn’t come back.
First some good news, the soundtrack RIPS. Every track is a synthwave banger and alone gave me the juice to keep playing. Add one whole star for that.
Ok now that that’s out of the way, the death system is insane. If you’re heavily armed and die, you go back to the last save where, not only do you do a runback (which itself is fine), but you have to do it at essentially level 1 and the further you are, the more impossible it is.
NOT to mention, every area has a Medusa-head enemy. Every single one. And they do way too much damage for a character with one health bar. Oh and here’s a fun piece of trivia, if you play on PC with a monitor over 60Hz, the game is bugged and some enemies will move too fast. That goes for some of the Medusa head enemies too. Fun
Some other thoughts. Bosses are too damage spongey, and if you run out of ammo for the good guns, you’re forced to just use your basic, which is painful because there’s no way to get more ammo mid fight.
I also understand this is a game from 2017, but Hollow Knight came out the same year, and Save Points not fully restoring health is unacceptable. Have fun going in between rooms to try to get health orbs. And I mean a lot. Even the highest orb refills such a small amount, so just filling one bar can take way longer than it should.
So that’s where I ended it. My zombie is too far, underwater with piranha that move too fast and erratically for my peashooter that only moves in set angles, with the best weapon so far, the flamethrower rendered completely unusable. That’s after the mummy enemies that Usain Bolt from a sarcophagus with no reaction time, the bird Medusa heads, the brain jumping enemies that are also impossible without the flamethrower, and fuck this.
First some good news, the soundtrack RIPS. Every track is a synthwave banger and alone gave me the juice to keep playing. Add one whole star for that.
Ok now that that’s out of the way, the death system is insane. If you’re heavily armed and die, you go back to the last save where, not only do you do a runback (which itself is fine), but you have to do it at essentially level 1 and the further you are, the more impossible it is.
NOT to mention, every area has a Medusa-head enemy. Every single one. And they do way too much damage for a character with one health bar. Oh and here’s a fun piece of trivia, if you play on PC with a monitor over 60Hz, the game is bugged and some enemies will move too fast. That goes for some of the Medusa head enemies too. Fun
Some other thoughts. Bosses are too damage spongey, and if you run out of ammo for the good guns, you’re forced to just use your basic, which is painful because there’s no way to get more ammo mid fight.
I also understand this is a game from 2017, but Hollow Knight came out the same year, and Save Points not fully restoring health is unacceptable. Have fun going in between rooms to try to get health orbs. And I mean a lot. Even the highest orb refills such a small amount, so just filling one bar can take way longer than it should.
So that’s where I ended it. My zombie is too far, underwater with piranha that move too fast and erratically for my peashooter that only moves in set angles, with the best weapon so far, the flamethrower rendered completely unusable. That’s after the mummy enemies that Usain Bolt from a sarcophagus with no reaction time, the bird Medusa heads, the brain jumping enemies that are also impossible without the flamethrower, and fuck this.