Halfway through this I realized how much Mr. Coo reminded me of the Little Ceasars guy and now I can't unsee it; I've been cursed with this realization, and now everyone else shall be too.
In the multiple reviews I’ve written, in only a few of them I’ve tackled how the conditions or outside factors affected directly to the development of the game in question; I’ve always loved talking about the design processes and ideas that take place within the minds of developers during the making of a work and how this impacted the game or in some cases the whole industry as a whole, but when it comes to talking about what actually happened behind the curtain, the only times I’ve really done that were in my Journey, Sticker Star and Sonic Adventure reviews. And it's not that these kinds of tales are uncommon, I don’t think I have to tell you how sadly this pattern of difficult conditions is something that is as common as the sunset, time and time again it happens and time and time again it fucking sucks, and the only reason I haven’t talked about it as much it’s either because it luckily didn’t happen in many of the games I’ve written about or I didn’t see fit to mention it (or in some other it may be the case that developers haven’t even spoken about it). Games are still a form of art and they will always be that, and it just happens that in the way I review art I try to focus on the final product and the impact it has or may have had, and the reason I’m saying all of this it’s because for me to talk about The Many Pieces of Mr.Coo in any meaningful way, it’s imperative that I mention everything that happened before and after its release, ‘cause it’s one of those cases were both the game itself.
When looking at Mr. Coo’s little adventure purely on its own, without knowing anything else, talking about is pretty straightforward: It’s a visual delight in every single way possible; the work put to create the animations that give life to the characters and backgrounds that make up the scenery of this funny and dark surrealist world is beyond commendable. I’m kinda liking this accidental tradition of playing one surrealist adventure game per year, because the result is always so special; The Many Pieces of Mr.Coo has charm and creativity oozing from every possible angle, it’s a nonstop barrage of absurdism that works incredibly well, and not only it does serve to produce jaw-dropping visuals and a blend of styles that doesn’t feel jarring in the slightest, it also creates an amazing collection of puzzles that are as crazy as the game itself. Some of this are perhaps a little too weird and fall in that same Same & Max paradox in which it becomes sometimes impossible to really figure out what you need to do next, tho in this case the hint system helps a ton, and it incentivizes trying to think of the solution before using it, and sometimes some hints still require some stuff to figure out that are much more manageable. During two thirds of the total chapters, it’s a joy to play, a little fun adventure that’s displays some insanely good visuals and fun challenges…. But then the last batch of sections happens. It’s not that it gets worse, as in these final moments we still see some really cool ideas in both visuals and puzzling, rather, it’s like witnessing a plane crashing down as it tries to land in the airport because suddenly every machine possible decided to break down.
Even almost three months after its initial release, these final sections are plagued with bugs and glitches that completely break the game. This is no simple minor issue which I’d usually ignore, this are glaring problems that either break your immersion (like Coo’s legs just casually walking below the background or the click register sometimes being completely broken) or straight-up break the entire game, forcing you to quit and restart from the beginning of the section, and keep in mind that we have that luxury only now, when it first released there was no saving system, so if it the game made it impossible to progress because it decided to.. have fun starting from the very beginning! These problems come together in the final challenge, one that on paper was very interesting and fun, but in practice feels sloppy, unfairly hard and has the risk or completely breaking in a certain point, all culminating in that ending… oh god the ending… One thing is to have such an cliffhanger after a finale that was seemingly crumbling down, and another thing is to tell you to replay the game to get 100 sloppily put and hard to get collectables to get a secret ending that amounts to nothing, it really takes some cojones to make people feel like they completely lost their time. And the worst part about all of this, the single part about the whole game and the whole third act, it’s that it wasn’t gonna be this way, but it was forced to be released broken beyond repair.
Creative director Nacho Rodríguez hasn’t been shy about the sheer incompetence and unprofessionalism of Gammera Nest, studio that was helping both developing ang publishing the game. They were pretty much rushing the game out the door, fully knowing just how unfinished it was, and Nacho as well as well as the rest of team of animators tried by all means to communicate with Gammera Nest to try to give the game more time to polish, but it’s not that the company shut down those request, they didn’t even bother to acknowledge them. The game was basically kidnapped into stores, forced to released even tho it need more time, more work, more polish, and Gammera knew this, Nacho knew this and tried everything to make it right, but in the end it happened, and now we have a game that could have been so much more from the get go and a legal battle that it’s creator never wanted. And the saddest part about this is that it shouldn’t surprise us: Gammera Nest has a long history of poor communication, complete and insulting unprofessionalism and even intimidation; they are the team behing Spain’s PlayStation Talents, a complete joke and embarrassment of an initiative that treated indie developers like an used tissue and that made many scared to speak up about what was happening in there, and many others to outright leave the industry as a whole. It’s CEO, Daniel Sánchez, has made clear multiple times that he doesn’t see art in this industry, he sees an opportunity to make some bucks at the cost of others, and he has made sure to build the company based around the idea and as well as to spit out some completely meaningless and dumb things over the years. They had struck gold like so many times before, but refused to see anything beyond the many they could make out of this ‘’product’’, and that’s what makes me sad, what makes me mad, what makes me lament Mr. Coo’s fate…
And yet, despite this, despite the finale to this story, despite releasing broken, what Nacho and the rest of the team pulled off despite it all is worth standing up and clapping. They built the most visually crazy and interesting game I’ve seen the entire year with some really cool puzzles and made this shine despite the conditions and despite its unfair fate. They deserve all the possible respect and appreciation for their work they can receive, there really is something special under the bugs and glitches, something that shines at full force and made me both smile and laugh. The Many Pices of Mr. Coo didn’t deserve to go through all this, none in the team did, but even in the worst circumstances, is worth appreciating the good, and in this surrealist, colorful little world, there’s a ton to love.
In the multiple reviews I’ve written, in only a few of them I’ve tackled how the conditions or outside factors affected directly to the development of the game in question; I’ve always loved talking about the design processes and ideas that take place within the minds of developers during the making of a work and how this impacted the game or in some cases the whole industry as a whole, but when it comes to talking about what actually happened behind the curtain, the only times I’ve really done that were in my Journey, Sticker Star and Sonic Adventure reviews. And it's not that these kinds of tales are uncommon, I don’t think I have to tell you how sadly this pattern of difficult conditions is something that is as common as the sunset, time and time again it happens and time and time again it fucking sucks, and the only reason I haven’t talked about it as much it’s either because it luckily didn’t happen in many of the games I’ve written about or I didn’t see fit to mention it (or in some other it may be the case that developers haven’t even spoken about it). Games are still a form of art and they will always be that, and it just happens that in the way I review art I try to focus on the final product and the impact it has or may have had, and the reason I’m saying all of this it’s because for me to talk about The Many Pieces of Mr.Coo in any meaningful way, it’s imperative that I mention everything that happened before and after its release, ‘cause it’s one of those cases were both the game itself.
When looking at Mr. Coo’s little adventure purely on its own, without knowing anything else, talking about is pretty straightforward: It’s a visual delight in every single way possible; the work put to create the animations that give life to the characters and backgrounds that make up the scenery of this funny and dark surrealist world is beyond commendable. I’m kinda liking this accidental tradition of playing one surrealist adventure game per year, because the result is always so special; The Many Pieces of Mr.Coo has charm and creativity oozing from every possible angle, it’s a nonstop barrage of absurdism that works incredibly well, and not only it does serve to produce jaw-dropping visuals and a blend of styles that doesn’t feel jarring in the slightest, it also creates an amazing collection of puzzles that are as crazy as the game itself. Some of this are perhaps a little too weird and fall in that same Same & Max paradox in which it becomes sometimes impossible to really figure out what you need to do next, tho in this case the hint system helps a ton, and it incentivizes trying to think of the solution before using it, and sometimes some hints still require some stuff to figure out that are much more manageable. During two thirds of the total chapters, it’s a joy to play, a little fun adventure that’s displays some insanely good visuals and fun challenges…. But then the last batch of sections happens. It’s not that it gets worse, as in these final moments we still see some really cool ideas in both visuals and puzzling, rather, it’s like witnessing a plane crashing down as it tries to land in the airport because suddenly every machine possible decided to break down.
Even almost three months after its initial release, these final sections are plagued with bugs and glitches that completely break the game. This is no simple minor issue which I’d usually ignore, this are glaring problems that either break your immersion (like Coo’s legs just casually walking below the background or the click register sometimes being completely broken) or straight-up break the entire game, forcing you to quit and restart from the beginning of the section, and keep in mind that we have that luxury only now, when it first released there was no saving system, so if it the game made it impossible to progress because it decided to.. have fun starting from the very beginning! These problems come together in the final challenge, one that on paper was very interesting and fun, but in practice feels sloppy, unfairly hard and has the risk or completely breaking in a certain point, all culminating in that ending… oh god the ending… One thing is to have such an cliffhanger after a finale that was seemingly crumbling down, and another thing is to tell you to replay the game to get 100 sloppily put and hard to get collectables to get a secret ending that amounts to nothing, it really takes some cojones to make people feel like they completely lost their time. And the worst part about all of this, the single part about the whole game and the whole third act, it’s that it wasn’t gonna be this way, but it was forced to be released broken beyond repair.
Creative director Nacho Rodríguez hasn’t been shy about the sheer incompetence and unprofessionalism of Gammera Nest, studio that was helping both developing ang publishing the game. They were pretty much rushing the game out the door, fully knowing just how unfinished it was, and Nacho as well as well as the rest of team of animators tried by all means to communicate with Gammera Nest to try to give the game more time to polish, but it’s not that the company shut down those request, they didn’t even bother to acknowledge them. The game was basically kidnapped into stores, forced to released even tho it need more time, more work, more polish, and Gammera knew this, Nacho knew this and tried everything to make it right, but in the end it happened, and now we have a game that could have been so much more from the get go and a legal battle that it’s creator never wanted. And the saddest part about this is that it shouldn’t surprise us: Gammera Nest has a long history of poor communication, complete and insulting unprofessionalism and even intimidation; they are the team behing Spain’s PlayStation Talents, a complete joke and embarrassment of an initiative that treated indie developers like an used tissue and that made many scared to speak up about what was happening in there, and many others to outright leave the industry as a whole. It’s CEO, Daniel Sánchez, has made clear multiple times that he doesn’t see art in this industry, he sees an opportunity to make some bucks at the cost of others, and he has made sure to build the company based around the idea and as well as to spit out some completely meaningless and dumb things over the years. They had struck gold like so many times before, but refused to see anything beyond the many they could make out of this ‘’product’’, and that’s what makes me sad, what makes me mad, what makes me lament Mr. Coo’s fate…
And yet, despite this, despite the finale to this story, despite releasing broken, what Nacho and the rest of the team pulled off despite it all is worth standing up and clapping. They built the most visually crazy and interesting game I’ve seen the entire year with some really cool puzzles and made this shine despite the conditions and despite its unfair fate. They deserve all the possible respect and appreciation for their work they can receive, there really is something special under the bugs and glitches, something that shines at full force and made me both smile and laugh. The Many Pices of Mr. Coo didn’t deserve to go through all this, none in the team did, but even in the worst circumstances, is worth appreciating the good, and in this surrealist, colorful little world, there’s a ton to love.
2 Comments
@ZapRowsdower Hard agree, it has so much potential and it does so many things right that it breaks my heart to see because of the internal problems and Gammera's influence it ended up being less than it could have... Still, really good game in many areas... not so good in the technical aspect
ZapRowsdower
5 months ago