The Wizard and the Slug Review

There’s one thing perverse about having two important 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 identify – 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 Appeal 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. Appeal doesn’t fairly look forward to 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 standard. Certain, there are enemies and platforms, in addition to a push to go from left to proper, display screen to display screen, however leaping and combating are uncommon beasts. You’ll be able to soar, however you can even double- and triple-jump too. However with every expanded soar, 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 measurement till they develop into a tiny sphere. What these two mechanics imply together is that you’ve a restricted variety of issues you are able to do earlier than you develop into a tiny blob and might’t double-jump or assault in any respect. It’s important to preserve them, utilizing them carefully till you’re again to full measurement. 

It would look like it’s there to gradual you down, however the principle purpose is to toss in some problem. If you happen to get broken while you’re at your smallest measurement, then you definately lose one among two well being pips. Lose each, and also you’re lifeless, restarting on the newest checkpoint. There’s one thing of the rhythm-action to the method, as you’re pulling off strikes after which stopping to regain measurement, in addition to a continuing swing between occurring the offensive after which working away, regaining your measurement. 

It’s definitely imaginative – we’ll give it that. On the optimistic facet, it calls for precision, as you could nail your assaults and jumps, since you’ll rapidly remodel right into a sitting duck afterwards. There’s a form of thrill to unleashing hell after which quietly hiding in a nook. However it’s additionally extremely messy. Fight particularly is problematic, as you’re lobbing balls that look, sadly, rather a lot such as you. You might be usually smaller than they’re, getting misplaced within the melee. It’s unimaginable to inform the place you truly are in sure situations, and – notably on the final flipping temple stage – this turns into obstructive. 

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

However that is the one manner during which The Wizard and the Slug is standard. As a result of what makes it exceptional is its tone, and its method to each humour and story. If you happen to’ve loved video games that completely drench their 2D platforming in suave, kooky narrative, like Wandersong and What Lies within the Multiverse, then you’ll discover a £4.99 deal with in The Wizard and the Slug. 

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

Then there’s the willpower 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. All of a sudden, 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 sport of yarn-based volleyball. You play as completely different characters; seem in a bartering minigame; expertise a rain of penguins; and play a sport of punch membership (don’t discuss it). It appears like somebody within the improvement staff 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 tricky 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. Assume Undertale and also you’re someplace near the tone that’s being achieved right here. Not fairly as chic as that comparability makes out, however superb 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 moderately enticing, however not overly so, ought to by no means have been nearly as good as this. We had been within the queue for fast, simple 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 buy The Wizard and the Slug from the Xbox Retailer