The Wizard and the Slug Review

There’s one thing perverse about having two primary characters – the titular wizard and the slug – and selecting the slug because the one you management. The wizard can fly, has virtually god-like powers, and – to all intents and functions – is the character that the plot orbits round. However no. Let’s play because the slug. Cheers, The Wizard and the Slug. 

Slug has no title – you’re not clever sufficient to burble out phrases – and also you wake out of your slug-burrow to a brand new day. As you slime throughout the forest, you come throughout a wizard named Allure who has crash-landed, gouging a crater out of your favorite path. The wizard asks you to search out their misplaced leg and arm, after which enquires about whether or not you wish to go on an journey. Allure doesn’t fairly await a solution, and hops into your physique with a possession spell. Common day.

This results in a spot of 2D platforming, which isn’t precisely typical. Certain, there are enemies and platforms, in addition to a push to go from left to proper, display to display, however leaping and preventing are uncommon beasts. You may leap, however you too can double- and triple-jump too. However with every expanded leap, you shed a little bit of your physique, till you’re nothing however a pea on the finish. Within the continuing couple of seconds, you regain the physique mass and return to being a slug.

It’s the same story with fight. Slug can hearth arcing blobs of goo at enemies, however that, too, reduces slug in dimension till they develop into a tiny sphere. What these two mechanics imply together is that you’ve got a restricted variety of issues you are able to do earlier than you develop into a tiny blob and may’t double-jump or assault in any respect. It’s a must to preserve them, utilizing them carefully till you’re again to full dimension. 

It’d seem to be it’s there to sluggish you down, however the principle cause is to toss in some issue. In case you get broken once you’re at your smallest dimension, then you definately lose certainly one of two well being pips. Lose each, and also you’re useless, restarting on the newest checkpoint. There’s one thing of the rhythm-action to the strategy, as you’re pulling off strikes after which stopping to regain dimension, in addition to a continuing swing between happening the offensive after which working away, regaining your dimension. 

It’s actually imaginative – we’ll give it that. On the constructive facet, it calls for precision, as it’s essential to nail your assaults and jumps, since you’ll rapidly rework right into a sitting duck afterwards. There’s a sort of thrill to unleashing hell after which quietly hiding in a nook. Nevertheless it’s additionally extremely messy. Fight particularly is problematic, as you’re lobbing balls that look, sadly, loads such as you. You’re typically smaller than they’re, getting misplaced within the melee. It’s inconceivable to inform the place you truly are in sure situations, and – significantly on the final flipping temple stage – this turns into obstructive. 

Ranges are fairly nicely designed, if not staggeringly creative. They’re simple, with none keys, locks, switches or Metroidvania features to them in any respect. In a approach, it’s sort of refreshing. 

However that is the one approach wherein The Wizard and the Slug is typical. As a result of what makes it exceptional is its tone, and its strategy to each humour and story. In case you’ve loved video games that completely drench their 2D platforming in suave, kooky narrative, like Wandersong and What Lies within the Multiverse, then you’re going to discover a £4.99 deal with in The Wizard and the Slug. 

We’re struggling to recall a bitesize platformer that has accomplished as a lot Tolkien-esque worldbuilding as The Wizard and the Slug. There have to be stacks of dominated notebooks again on the developer’s home, stuffed with backhistory for the sport. It’s a story of titans, immortals, creator gods, warriors and clergymen, all in a battle for management of the world. However they’re largely associated to one another, so there’s a cleaning soap opera facet to it too. The wizard is highly effective but additionally a sibling, and that non-public connection to a lot of the bosses and characters makes for a robust dynamic. 

Then there’s the dedication to maintain messing with the construction. It’s what we love most about The Wizard and the Slug: it may’t go quite a lot of screens with out doing a little loopy antics that border on self-sabotage. Immediately, you’ve gained a canine sidekick, they usually’re throwing enemies up into the air so that you can blob within the face, earlier than the enemies cease fully and problem you to a recreation of yarn-based volleyball. You play as totally different characters; seem in a bartering minigame; expertise a rain of penguins; and play a recreation of punch membership (don’t speak about it). It seems like somebody within the growth crew saved asking ‘what if…?’, and – as a substitute of claiming no – everybody went together with it. The outcome’s a bit fab. 

Layering over all of this bonkersness is a thick soup of humour and lethal severe mythologising. It’s a troublesome mix to swallow in locations, and The Wizard and the Slug could be a bit windbaggy at instances, speaking longer than it actually ought to. However largely it really works, as a big proportion of the jokes land (a psychotic banana and its feud with a smart orange is a spotlight), as does a big chunk of the intense stuff. Suppose Undertale and also you’re someplace near the tone that’s being achieved right here. Not fairly as elegant as that comparability makes out, however excellent nonetheless.

Which is, as you may need famous, not how The Wizard and the Slug presents itself. A £4.99 2D platformer from Ratalaika that appears fairly enticing, however not overly so, ought to by no means have been pretty much as good as this. We have been within the queue for fast, straightforward achievements and a throwaway little bit of leisure. What we bought was a freewheeling, creative little platformer that made us assume and chuckle in equal measure. Bravo.

You should purchase The Wizard and the Slug from the Xbox Retailer