Delightful [redacted] wearing the skin of Zelda!

Not a lot that can be said without becoming a spoiler review, so here are some notes that might get you to play it:
- This is one of the few games that learned the good level design lessons from Dark Souls (even DS 2/3 didn't learn those).
- There are cool puzzles that make you feel smart in ways very few puzzle games do.
- If you are a savant, you could theoretically figure out all of this games late game puzzles with no internet assistance (ie, if you want to turn the games last hour into an additional 20, you could use a pen and paper instead of google and just DO IT.)

My only knock on the game is the combat sucks, and occasionally Tunic leans on it as if it doesn't. If you can get past that, Tunic does some cool stuff that is worth seeing.

Non-linear Spooky Cinematic Platformer?

Animal Well is a cool exploration puzzle platformer, that gave me just as many 'Another World' vibes as it did 'Metroid'.

The game is intelligently designed and will absolutely be a fully unique experience for many players. Even without checking out the postgame (yet), I know Animal Well is going to leave its mark for a while.

Even with some weird quirks around interactions with threats, and a postgame I'm cautious about, Animal Well is absolutely at least worth spending the ~4 hours to hit the credits. (Especially for the PS+ price of $0)


Extended Thoughts

I don't know if the inspiration was conscious or even direct, but every element of the game that wasn't clearly mapped to the "Exploration Puzzle" genre (Metroid and Cave Story in particular) feels like it came straight from 90's-era Cinematic Platformers.

While the gamefeel is closer to a more traditional platformer, the interactions with the environment, in particularly the timed puzzles to avoid dying, feel straight out of something like 'Abe's Oddysee' or 'Heart of Darkness'.

In-lieu of the combat typical of exploration platformers, room/encounters are puzzles. The majority of which involve a sequence of actions that need to be taking in both the correct order, and with tight timing between them. Some of these sequences with the extra timing/maneuvering threat of enemies that will either damage or insta-kill the player.

The biggest weaknesses of the game is despite how solid the game feel is, Animal Well somehow inherits the issue of many cinematic platformers in that avoiding enemy damage feels somewhat arbitrary/random. Many enemies move in a less obvious and intentionally off-putting way, which while positively adding to the atmosphere, makes most "combat" puzzles feel tedious. In most combat scenarios with these "top layer of the screen, floating oddly" enemies, I often ended up just kind of ignoring them, with the 3+ hits I could take, being enough in any scenario to just tank the damage and progress. Some of these combat scenarios would be tense as I clear them with one heart remaining, others never being touched once.

When I exhaust my kit and I still cannot tell what is the cause of some encounters going better than others, it makes said encounters feel like meaningless filler. I understand that having a level of uncertainty is part of the point of the game as a whole, and it does add to the games mystique. However, not having recognisable attack patterns other than "X is going to swing now, If I jump in this direction, 50/50 I get hit or not?", isn't a great feeling.

I think I'm only really harping on this because outside of these situations, everything just comes together and works really well! The enemies that follow more ridged rules, while not as worrisome, have a clear solution that feels more at place in what at its core, is a puzzle game where progress is made by solving problems.

Also just to speculate here, I have reached the postgame, and already have items that weren't really NEEDED before I hit credits, and have an item that lets me "see things". I don't want to be correct here, but many indies go down the "metatext" route, and imo, not many pull it off well. The few games that pull it off well (which Im not going to list here because of obvious spoilers), are the ones I feel either had something interesting to say about art/peoples relationship with art or metatext was used to elevate a cool horror thing.

I think Animal Well has setup the vibes that the later could work, but if I have to do tedious 100% completion or shit involving QR Codes, Im just looking it up at that point. (imo, a game that can ONLY be bought digitally online is allowed to do ARG shit with the internet. But even in that scenario, QR shit always sucks).

I'll come back and either edit the review or leave a spoiler comment after I get my answers to that.

I don't want to go down on a low note (especially when its a speculative one), so I want to list a couple of things I thought were neat.
- Fish that taught me about using one item.
- Pipes.
- The constant tension of "That's a new wild animal, what the fuck is it going to do?!".
- Most the PS5 file size being the 4k images for the console UI is very funny.
- Items having a secondary or tertiary function that were always a delight to figure out.
- I still have no idea what the protagonist actually is.

"Can you fry eggs ontop of Mount Everest?"
idk, probably after some of the shit I pulled off in this game.

The vibes are immaculate and the at first simple cooking mechanic, has enough twists to keep it both engaging and super annoying (fun way... but also holy shit the prison area).

Great way to spent ~2hrs. I can't think of a better non-spoiler way to describe the game than the current "most helpful" Steam review:

"Cooking Mama for chain smokers"

If that peaks your interest, highly recommend!

If Post Void was a love letter to late 80's/early 90's anime OVA's.

Seriously, Mullet Mad Jack is great. But if you want to play something both much shorter and much cheaper to see if this is the kind of game for you. Post Void is incredible and I also highly recommend it.


Extended Thoughts

Mullet Mad Jack is a goofy time (good). Just like in Post Void, you are playing an FPS Roguelite where you have to run to the level exit ASAP because your health drops rapidly over time. Once you get to an exit you get to chose one of 3 upgrades you keep for the next couple of rooms.

The biggest difference is in Post Void you keep it for the next couple of rooms because you will then finish the game. Whereas in Mullet Mad Jack you are either playing the Endless Mode, or you have finished a chapter in its much longer Campaign.

So here you are paying for an increase in production value and volume of content. Both in a more traditional story mode, and in gameplay variation. Here you very quickly learn how the game works, get into a flow state, get flow interrupted by the addition of a new mechanic/environmental hazard/enemy, quickly return to flow state, repeat. And just when you think the game is reaching it's limit of what it can switch up, it finishes.

Game feels good, sounds good, looks good and has a campaign that feels like just the right length. My only criticism is the boss fights, that are sadly pretty dull. As boss fights are when the game drops its unique game loop in favour of the pretty stale FPS cliché of 'circle-strafe the bullet sponge'.

All in all, fun ~3-4 hour campaign, can easily see myself playing the Endless mode every once in a while.

I do want to leave this off with a difficulty recommendation, as I did see some people calling the game "dull after a while".

I played the first chapter on Normal difficulty, then restarted and played through the whole campaign on Challenge. Mullet Mad Jack describes these difficulties as:
Normal - "Recommended Start - For Average FPS Players"
Challenge - "The True Experience - Suffer As Intended By The Devs"
I don't know who these "Average FPS Players" are, but they're bad at video games. If you are both abled bodied, and this isn't your first FPS, you can skip Normal and go straight to Challenge.

Mindless fun... segmented-rogue-lite(?)

(I honestly don't know what we call these? The gamewide upgrade system is like a rouge-lite. But instead of a full game run, MythForce is split into levels that themselves are self contained mini-runs where you start with nothing and RNG into the perks that help you.)

Early on with little upgrades, the Mythic difficulties feel weirdly balanced (most enemies pose the same threat as on normal, but some enemies can 1-hit KO). But this might be because the game doesn't expect higher difficulties to be touched until the game is fully complete on Normal? (Which itself has been pretty simple, hence the trial of higher difficulties.)

Played this solo, I will most likely only touch this again as a MP experience.