Nobody Saves the World: Proof that a really great game doesn't need cutting-edge graphics

After finishing the main story and a lot of the side missions on Hogwart's Legacy I once again found myself in a tight spot where anything I play after it was going to be disappointing. A fantastic game is a double-edged sword because while you are happy that the game was great, almost anything you look at afterwards is going to be a letdown. This has been the case for the next 3 games I tried after Hogwart's in that all the games I played after finishing it were something that was "meh" in my mind and I only played them for a few hours, or even less, before jumping ship.

Then I landed on a game that I had heard great things about before but just ignored it because despite good reviews, I don't like to spend full price on a game. At just over a GB, this $30 game is pretty high priced IMO for such a small game.

But as it turns out, the game is only small because they don't waste a bunch of resources on having cutting edge graphics and instead focused on something that is far more important in any game: Actually having good and fun gameplay.

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At first glance, someone might take a look at the graphics of this game and decide to skip it based on solely that. This, my dear friends, would be a terrible mistake because this is one of the best games of its type that I have ever played.

This game is made by DrinkBox studios, which is the studio behind the absolutely epic Guacamelee games and it kind of shows in the art style and focus on tight gameplay while not being overly concerned with having lifelike graphics and also having a real focus on high levels of humor.

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This game starts you out as a "nobody" character that is literally named "nobody" who has a wand that enabled him to transform into a bunch of different characters, most of which are animals or are cartoonish versions of traditional characters such as a knight or ranger. All of the different character types have different strengths and weaknesses and involve quite different attack styles.

For me, thus far, I enjoy playing as the turtle, which is very fast in water (one of the only characters that can actually enter water) and has two main attacks: Rolling at enemies inside of your natural armor and spitting water at them for a brief time to do static damage.

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As you progress other sorts of creatures you can transform into are added to your arsenal and some might be tempted to stick with just one favorite type of character. The game kind of forces you to use all of them though because certain enemies cannot be harmed by a particular attack. I have found myself being forced to transform into the rat on several occasions, simply because my ranger and knight were unable to hurt whatever it is that I was dealing with at the time.

It is important to use all of the characters that you are given though, because you level them up by using a certain kind of attack after a while. By doing this you open up new abilities with that character and also open the path to new creatures that you can transform into.

There are very few instances where you are forced to use a certain character type but when it does happen, it is normally pretty funny such as when you must be the horse in order to enter the "horse temple."

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Then of course there is a bit of a love story in there but this just shows how humorous the people at DrinkBox are because the love story takes place between you and another sort and trust me, it is very G-rated... nothing particularly gross happens in this story.

Getting money allows you to upgrade attacks and defense, and even though I haven't gotten to that part yet, it will eventually allow magic upgrades as well.

The map is open-world to a certain degree and while there is a main story the side-quests are pretty fun as well. There is no linear path in this game, but they do frustrate you out of straying off of a certain path by having the enemies in a particular area or dungeon be a much higher level than you are. I think they are kind of making fun of other "true" open-world games by offering you a quest near the start of the game when you are around level 5 and the objective, that probably only speed-runners can complete, is around 45 levels higher than you currently are.

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It is largely up to you where you decide to go next and the "fog of war" eliminates your ability to see the actual path to where you think you need to go. You very well could arrive there only to find that the path is blocked by something that you cannot yet unlock and that is just fine because combat is genuinely good. I did find myself skipping some encounters because after you have leveled up a certain kind of attack with one particular character, there isn't any real incentive to use it anymore. You are better off switching to a different character and killing the monsters in a new way to level that particular character up instead.

I like how they did this: DrinkBox rarely FORCES you to play as a certain character but if you have any sort of intelligence you are going to quickly realize that by simply blazing through everything with your strongest one doesn't really benefit you in the long run. It isn't an arduous task to level these things up because normally they are quite simplistic objectives such as simply killing things with your main, and secondary attack.

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My one and ONLY beef with this game, which I hope they will patch at some point if it is possible, is the "quick select" tool for changing characters on the fly. In some instances it is necessary to change to another character mid-battle but the "quick select" wheel doesn't stop or slow down time. So if you are spending a bunch of time on changing from knight to rat or slug or horse, you are likely getting whacked by the enemies that are always approaching you. You CAN stop time by entering the main menu to select a character that way, but this is a bit time-consuming and it would have been nice if the "quick select" worked a bit better. I don't want to go into the entire pause menu that includes objectives, powerups, maps, and the game settings just to change to an alternate character.

I suppose this is a minor thing.

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I had to buy this game because the PS-Plus catalog and especially the monthly games offered in Feb were just trash. I think that Sony is offloading their garbage to subscribers a couple of times a year and while I have been reasonably satisfied most months, this month is absolute yuck-selections of games that are rated around 2.5/ 5 in their user scores. Lucky for me the subscription is only $7 a month so no biggie!

While I think that $30 is kind of a lot to spend on a rather simplistic looking game, this game is far better than almost all of the games I have spent twice that much on in the past. This is just good fun and I believe that almost anyone will enjoy it. It's silly, the controls are tight, the graphics are a throwback to simpler times, and the action is frenetic and fun.

I heartily recommend that you check this one out. Co-op is available but since I rarely game with anyone else, I haven't event tried that yet.