Twenty years ago was a very different time for gamers, it was approaching the end of the 80s, TV was awful and one of the most successful and interesting systems available was an 8-bit gaming console called the Nintendo Entertainment System. This latest frenzy had hundreds of titles created for it; some have had international success and films, such as Mario and Final Fantasy. Others have become legends in their own lifetime and will literally sell a console – such as Zelda. Others have faded into obscurity after a promising start, like A Boy and His Blob.
Move forward twenty years and this title has fallen into complete ambiguity, over the years it’s occasionally been revisited to potentially try and create a remake but each time these remakes have failed to appear. This trend has now been bucked by WayForward Technologies, who have created an updated version of this cult classic.
Although at first glance Blob could easily be an imaginary friend, he is in fact an alien from Blobolonia and has come to Earth to try and find help to usurp the current Evil Emperor of Blobolnia. He unfortunately only comes across an Earth boy, who gallantly decides to help him along the way. “A Boy and His Blob” is divided into different worlds, each with ten levels to complete. Boy will start off at his secret hideout, where a map will be consulted before moving on to actually start platforming through the levels. The crucial element of this game is the Blob. Blob is Boy’s companion and although Blob looks like a serial killer, with dead eyes, he’s actually vitally important as without him Boy would be unable to get past various obstacles and puzzles that are littered throughout the levels.
Blob, for the most part, doesn’t actually contribute much to the adventure. That is until Boy starts to feed him jellybeans. Different coloured jellybeans will allow Blob to change and have different abilities, think Ditto from Pokémon, only more helpful and won’t die immediately. In the original NES title, part of the game was searching out jellybeans, fortunately this tedious task has been removed in the Wii remake and Boy has a limitless supply of jellybeans. However, some levels will restrict the abilities available to Blob, so it’s crucial that the correct ‘bean is selected otherwise the player can easily become unstuck by the often complex puzzles.
These puzzles often have a worrying lack of faith in the player, with pictures advising what form to transform the Blob into. However, just because there’s a form there doesn’t mean it has to be followed, just like the previously set out rules of the title. Blob himself has certain abilities, such as being able to float past objects when it’s in the floating mode – except on the occasional puzzle where he becomes more solid than before. Yet for the most part the puzzle and level design is very solid, with car jacks that realign entire levels, cranks and switches that open doors, it’s a little more linear than perhaps would have been liked. Limiting the type of beans and abilities available allows “A Boy and His Blob” to be a more rounded and open title, but it does take away a slither of fun and mystery.
There are two options of control, Classic Controller of using the Wii Remote and Nunchuck. Regardless of which option is chosen the control stick is what moves Boy around. There’s no Wii Waggle at all in “A Boy and His Blob”, which comes as a blessing as this surprisingly challenging puzzle title would fall apart with a too strong gush of Wii Waggle. There item buttons are configurable as well and this contributes to the natural difficulty curve, at first the puzzles may seem a little easy for established players but the difficulty moves along at a decent pace keeping established gamers interested, whilst catering for the younger gamer.
What really sets “A Boy and His Blob” aside from many other titles is the simply astonishing graphics. The game cries out for a 2D style, which is thankfully allowed. Whereas most people assume 2D games to be pixel based and 16 bit, the cell shaded graphics look as if they’ve been lifted off of a watercolour painting. Lost Winds looks amazing, but a “Boy and His Blob” has a different type of charm and adds to the magic of the title.
