The Adventure Pals

If you have a kid at home, this is the best co-op action available on Switch: responsive, forgiving, unexpected and terribly funny (the player two giraffe is an unicorn). Kirby Star Allies could learn a lesson or two from Adventure Pals.

The Adventure Pals was one of my most highly anticipated games of 2018 and on nearly every account it lived up to my own self-made hype. The art is beautiful, the worlds and characters have personality and the platforming is fast paced and addictive. It’s great that this game is accessible to everyone and I loved every minute playing it. Sure some people might say it’s an Adventure Time knock-off but for me, Massive Monster have created their own unique world which I can’t wait to go back and play in The Adventure Pals 2! Unfortunately I did experience some performance issues later in the game, but this may vary from game to game. For more indie reviews on the Nintendo Switch, check out Switch Indie Fix.

What a wonderful game that could easily have cost more than the £10 it's going for. The level design gets a little samey after a while, the platforming feels a little imprecise sometimes and the combat is largely mashing the attack button. Those for me are the 3 things which hold this back from a higher score but, for the most part there's plenty of room for error in the platforming so that wasn't often an issue. It's just great fun to run and jump and giraffe-copter through the levels. This is the first game in a long time that I've gone on to 100% partly because is shorter nature but also credit to the enjoyable play loop. The story is daft by design but fun too as is the dialogue and the cast of bizarre characters. Happily with such a plot there's plenty of space for a follow up which I'll be sure to pick up.

The adventure pals not much of an adventure the adventure pals is a 2d platformer where you play as a boy named wilton who’s mom and dad are snatched up on his birthday, and you set out to collect rubies and get them back from the evil mr b This game consist of 5 different worlds, 21 different quests and took me around 9 hours to complete… The is a really charming game visually... it feels very cartoon network style with its goofy animations and characters... The characters and art of this game save this what otherwise is a pretty bland experience.. There were some funny moments sprinkled in here with different npcs, but the dialog quickly just becomes nonsense that I had no interest in reading... And the levels are decently fun to get through... but the get stale fairly quickly… The objective of a quest is go to a section marked on your map and get from checkpoint to checkpoint 5 times, and at the end of the final checkpoint in an area is the gem to move on.. However there are no checkpoints in between these mini levels within the levels you have to get from your well to the next will without dying or the current mini level you’re in will reset itself.. Which honestly isn’t a big deal... it can actually be really helpful at times as there is an xp system here... you have a sword for combat, and you’re accompanied by your birthday giraffe and a rock to help you with platforming and mild combat help as well.. Enemies drop xp which allows you to pick one of 3 upgrades... all of which you’ll have by the end of the game, but these upgrades can give you health by doing damage, it can make the xp drops and coins magnetic to your, make enemies drop pickups... all the way to the max level of 21 which is easily reached before the games end… these item drops are useful in combat and range from health pickups, invincibility potions, and bombs.. There are moments you can skip over enemies and some moments where you’ll have to defeat enemies in an area to move on, and you’ll basically be throwing switches, pulling levels... searching for cupcakes to turn in for a random cosmetic item, searching for sticker packs, and collecting cash to unlock chests throughout levels that also contain consumable items and you can buy these items at shops all of this looks and sounds great.. And at first it actually is great... The gameplay is smooth and fluent... the combat is engaging, you’ll have to dodge spongier enemies... you’ll later have to deal with enemies that heal during battle and some that have ranged attacks.. However unfortunately all 9 hours of this game feels exactly the same And that could come down to the nature of these types of games where the platforming is a mix of vertical and horizontal, it’s much harder to tell a story and change things up in every level like a Mario game does for example.. And this game suffers by this fact... there are a few neat moments here with its switches and simple puzzles... but these moments are so rare… The only change up is that each of the world end in a super simple boss battle to take you to a new world and complete another 25 mini levels that all feel the same.. They tried… there’s new enemies and picks ups as the game goes on... there’s even a water world… But nothing mixes the gameplay up enough… The Adventure Pals is an enjoyable and cute looking game.. But it’s a monotonous game that overstays its welcome. I give the adventure pals A 6.5/10

The game starts off great, it plays well, it has a crap load of charm, but the more I played it the more I realized how shallow the game really is. The npc's hardly have any impact on the game other then dishing out a quick quest, the dungeons or whatever you'd like to call them are repetitive and long winded. Was a good game, now, I just think it over stays its welcome.