Taking a brief break from Pokémon games for what is an impromptu nostalgia trip for me; puzzle game mood randomly struck me and I knew I had to revisit this one. Scribblenauts! ...no shit, you've seen what review this game is for.
When I say nostalgic, I really do mean nostalgic. This game was one I followed since seeing the pre-release covered in a Nintendo magazine and the very idea of being able to create anything(*) to solve various puzzles was enough to get me absolutely hyped for the game. I've always been big on wanting to draw, write, and program projects of my own so having a game that encouraged creating your own solutions with numerous possible ways to complete each level blew me away. Alas, I wasn't fortunate enough to be able to get it on launch day, but come Chrimbo 2009 the game was in my possession and it expectedly became my newest obsession as soon as it was mine. I can still remember absolutely loving discovering everything the game had to offer, finding out the solutions to the various levels, discovering what words were actually usable in the game at all... like I said, massively nostalgic game for me right here. And I loved it so much, I completed it 100%.
...at least I'm pretty sure I did? I have no way of actually verifying this because of an infamous incident where one of my family members who borrowed the game from me deleted my save file. Rather than just use the second save slot. Needless to say I was pissed and still bring it up whenever I see him, mostly to be 'that guy' because it annoys him. Thankfully he wasn't around to borrow the game again when replaying it for this review.
Scribblenauts is... as I already described. A game full of puzzle stages where the solutions are created by you writing words to spawn items from an in-game dictionary list, and this very premise is a strong one from the very start. As mentioned, just seeing some magazine pages of it was enough to get me hooked and hyped! And to be fair this game does deliver on that premise mostly well, because the amount of words in this game is still rather surprisingly big. There's plenty you wouldn't expect to exist in the game at all and a number of developer easter eggs too (as well as special Konami characters if you're Japanese, but I'm not so damn it) which makes the game feel more than just a visual dictionary that happens to also be a video game. The way everything looks and animates, too, really does add to the charm and it's an art-style I still adore to this day. It fits the DS incredibly well but even in promotional material the style looks unique despite being simple when you break it down, it serves it's purpose really well. The way they handled character emotions/reactions in-game is super unique too without leaving the player feeling lost or confused. Visually it is honestly fantastic and perhaps one of my favourite looking titles on the DS system. How much of that is familiarity bias... I couldn't tell you.
There are a ton of levels (200+!) in this game split across ten worlds with twenty-two levels in each, eleven of two different categories; puzzle stages and action stages. The former require you to solve puzzles that make a Starite- your end of level McGuffin in this series -appear, whilst the latter have a Starite already placed within the map and you have to make your way there. Often still with a degree of puzzle-solving involved, considering you have to write words to get there. Puzzle stages ended up being my favourite by far by the end of the game as they really do get your braincells racking about to think of what could be just one of many solutions to the situations presented before you, and though action stages aren't too bad... for the most part... they end up suffering from a key problem this game has and that would be the wonky controls. Something I absolutely forgot about and I assume willingly blocked through the power of nostalgia blindness, because oh my god are the controls really imperfect here.
The control scheme is actually really simple and, on paper, really good; you hold your stylus in a direction to move around the stage, tap/hold upwards to jump. However, Maxwell (our lovable protagonist) has an unusual amount of speed to him and will very rarely stop right away. This leads to falling into a pit- be it of fire, spikes, or the void itself -way more times than should otherwise be possible. It is worse, though, when Maxwell refuses to stop jumping in-place like a sugar-fed toddler at a cinema because then you have to tap somewhere else on the screen to get him to stay still... which can once more lead to unintentional deaths if he moves in the wrong way. This imprecise touch screen movement also seems to extend to the objects themselves too as a number of times some objects I created would only want to be dragged when touched in a specific way, yet this also seemed inconsistent. First time making a black hole? It worked fine. Second time with the same object? Just got stuck hovering in place as I somehow failed to drag it with me. It's so weird and just oddly unrefined, I genuinely don't remember it being this imperfect... the game is still perfectly playable with these issues intact, don't get me wrong, but man. Stages that could be completed in one or two tries instead take so much longer to finish because you're likely to accidentally die a couple of times due to these controls.
How this specifically affects action stages should, I feel, be obvious. You're trying to platform or race or make a mad-dash for your end of level goal with controls that sometimes work but sometimes don't instead. Add explosive items, spike balls, fire grills, or combat encounters to the mix and a lot of the time action stages became a bit groan-worthy with what you've got to put up with. Fighting not just the level obstacles but the game itself. Puzzle levels can sometimes be affected by this, too, if harmful obstacles get included as part of the layout but I can't really remember any such issue. No instead puzzle levels seemed to suffer from a bit of redundancy, my chief example being a number of similar "get (x) to (y)" objectives that most of the time can have the same- or at least incredibly similar -solution. For fuck's sake the second to last puzzle level of the ENTIRE GAME is a "get (x) to (y)" stage, whereas it easily could've been placed much earlier in the game. I don't have an issue with similar level structures as this is the kind of game where there are often hundreds of possible solutions to any one stage, but when the actual layouts end up being simple along with having similar objectives? Come on...
It really is a shame because a lot of these levels are super good. But the repetition of certain layouts and simplified objectives becomes clear after a while of playing, where it feels like they added a huge amount of stages mainly for the sake of it. And I don't say this to try and disrespect the developers, I have SO much respect for what they did to bring us this game even with an apparently limited development cycle (it does kinda show) with the final product still being good. I want that to be remembered; I do not think this game is bad, because that would be wrong. This game is still good in spite of it's flaws. It's just that these flaws intertwine with not only each other, but the core of the game as well. This makes it pretty difficult to just overlook them. Honestly with some polish to the controls and spiced-up level objectives, this would've easily scored higher for me. But as it is, I don't think I can give more than 3-stars even with all my nostalgia bias. I would still definitely recommend this game if you haven't played it before, because it is absolutely worth a shot! Just be aware than it is definitely imperfect in a way that can hurt the fundamentals on show.
All in all? A really good start to a really great series. The controls are ass, a chunk of repetitive levels feel fairly pointless, and some level solutions are comprised of pop culture references that although clever would be frustrating to those who aren't in-the-know. But the graphics, the music, and the gameplay- both at its core and with the best of the level designs -really do save it. If you're not even a big fan of puzzle games but the premise interests you, please give it a go! I may not have the rose-tinted love for this game that I expected to coming back to it, but that I still remembered something of basically every single level after years of not playing is a really positive sign that they made something very special.
Up next... Super Scribblenauts. Will this sequel released a mere year later fare much better? (spoilers: yes)
When I say nostalgic, I really do mean nostalgic. This game was one I followed since seeing the pre-release covered in a Nintendo magazine and the very idea of being able to create anything(*) to solve various puzzles was enough to get me absolutely hyped for the game. I've always been big on wanting to draw, write, and program projects of my own so having a game that encouraged creating your own solutions with numerous possible ways to complete each level blew me away. Alas, I wasn't fortunate enough to be able to get it on launch day, but come Chrimbo 2009 the game was in my possession and it expectedly became my newest obsession as soon as it was mine. I can still remember absolutely loving discovering everything the game had to offer, finding out the solutions to the various levels, discovering what words were actually usable in the game at all... like I said, massively nostalgic game for me right here. And I loved it so much, I completed it 100%.
...at least I'm pretty sure I did? I have no way of actually verifying this because of an infamous incident where one of my family members who borrowed the game from me deleted my save file. Rather than just use the second save slot. Needless to say I was pissed and still bring it up whenever I see him, mostly to be 'that guy' because it annoys him. Thankfully he wasn't around to borrow the game again when replaying it for this review.
Scribblenauts is... as I already described. A game full of puzzle stages where the solutions are created by you writing words to spawn items from an in-game dictionary list, and this very premise is a strong one from the very start. As mentioned, just seeing some magazine pages of it was enough to get me hooked and hyped! And to be fair this game does deliver on that premise mostly well, because the amount of words in this game is still rather surprisingly big. There's plenty you wouldn't expect to exist in the game at all and a number of developer easter eggs too (as well as special Konami characters if you're Japanese, but I'm not so damn it) which makes the game feel more than just a visual dictionary that happens to also be a video game. The way everything looks and animates, too, really does add to the charm and it's an art-style I still adore to this day. It fits the DS incredibly well but even in promotional material the style looks unique despite being simple when you break it down, it serves it's purpose really well. The way they handled character emotions/reactions in-game is super unique too without leaving the player feeling lost or confused. Visually it is honestly fantastic and perhaps one of my favourite looking titles on the DS system. How much of that is familiarity bias... I couldn't tell you.
There are a ton of levels (200+!) in this game split across ten worlds with twenty-two levels in each, eleven of two different categories; puzzle stages and action stages. The former require you to solve puzzles that make a Starite- your end of level McGuffin in this series -appear, whilst the latter have a Starite already placed within the map and you have to make your way there. Often still with a degree of puzzle-solving involved, considering you have to write words to get there. Puzzle stages ended up being my favourite by far by the end of the game as they really do get your braincells racking about to think of what could be just one of many solutions to the situations presented before you, and though action stages aren't too bad... for the most part... they end up suffering from a key problem this game has and that would be the wonky controls. Something I absolutely forgot about and I assume willingly blocked through the power of nostalgia blindness, because oh my god are the controls really imperfect here.
The control scheme is actually really simple and, on paper, really good; you hold your stylus in a direction to move around the stage, tap/hold upwards to jump. However, Maxwell (our lovable protagonist) has an unusual amount of speed to him and will very rarely stop right away. This leads to falling into a pit- be it of fire, spikes, or the void itself -way more times than should otherwise be possible. It is worse, though, when Maxwell refuses to stop jumping in-place like a sugar-fed toddler at a cinema because then you have to tap somewhere else on the screen to get him to stay still... which can once more lead to unintentional deaths if he moves in the wrong way. This imprecise touch screen movement also seems to extend to the objects themselves too as a number of times some objects I created would only want to be dragged when touched in a specific way, yet this also seemed inconsistent. First time making a black hole? It worked fine. Second time with the same object? Just got stuck hovering in place as I somehow failed to drag it with me. It's so weird and just oddly unrefined, I genuinely don't remember it being this imperfect... the game is still perfectly playable with these issues intact, don't get me wrong, but man. Stages that could be completed in one or two tries instead take so much longer to finish because you're likely to accidentally die a couple of times due to these controls.
How this specifically affects action stages should, I feel, be obvious. You're trying to platform or race or make a mad-dash for your end of level goal with controls that sometimes work but sometimes don't instead. Add explosive items, spike balls, fire grills, or combat encounters to the mix and a lot of the time action stages became a bit groan-worthy with what you've got to put up with. Fighting not just the level obstacles but the game itself. Puzzle levels can sometimes be affected by this, too, if harmful obstacles get included as part of the layout but I can't really remember any such issue. No instead puzzle levels seemed to suffer from a bit of redundancy, my chief example being a number of similar "get (x) to (y)" objectives that most of the time can have the same- or at least incredibly similar -solution. For fuck's sake the second to last puzzle level of the ENTIRE GAME is a "get (x) to (y)" stage, whereas it easily could've been placed much earlier in the game. I don't have an issue with similar level structures as this is the kind of game where there are often hundreds of possible solutions to any one stage, but when the actual layouts end up being simple along with having similar objectives? Come on...
It really is a shame because a lot of these levels are super good. But the repetition of certain layouts and simplified objectives becomes clear after a while of playing, where it feels like they added a huge amount of stages mainly for the sake of it. And I don't say this to try and disrespect the developers, I have SO much respect for what they did to bring us this game even with an apparently limited development cycle (it does kinda show) with the final product still being good. I want that to be remembered; I do not think this game is bad, because that would be wrong. This game is still good in spite of it's flaws. It's just that these flaws intertwine with not only each other, but the core of the game as well. This makes it pretty difficult to just overlook them. Honestly with some polish to the controls and spiced-up level objectives, this would've easily scored higher for me. But as it is, I don't think I can give more than 3-stars even with all my nostalgia bias. I would still definitely recommend this game if you haven't played it before, because it is absolutely worth a shot! Just be aware than it is definitely imperfect in a way that can hurt the fundamentals on show.
All in all? A really good start to a really great series. The controls are ass, a chunk of repetitive levels feel fairly pointless, and some level solutions are comprised of pop culture references that although clever would be frustrating to those who aren't in-the-know. But the graphics, the music, and the gameplay- both at its core and with the best of the level designs -really do save it. If you're not even a big fan of puzzle games but the premise interests you, please give it a go! I may not have the rose-tinted love for this game that I expected to coming back to it, but that I still remembered something of basically every single level after years of not playing is a really positive sign that they made something very special.
Up next... Super Scribblenauts. Will this sequel released a mere year later fare much better? (spoilers: yes)