*To note, a copy of The Adventure Pals was supplied to me by the game’s developers Massive Monster.*

It’s time for an adventure with Massive Monster’s cute and quirky The Adventure Pals.

The Story

You play as Wilton and it’s your birthday (hooray!). Your Papa has a huge surprise waiting for you but first you have to do a few helpfully placed jumps to get there (and to teach you the controls). When you get to your party, you find a huge and delicious looking birthday cake waiting for you. Your Papa gives you a bomb as your first present and when thrown at the cake, it reveals your real surprise. Inside is your very own giraffe, which you call Sparkles.

As you’re getting to know your new found friend, your party is pooped by Mr B, who comes riding in on a bee! Mr B kidnaps your Papa and plans to turn him into a hotdog as part of his evil plan to destroy friendship. Wilton, his pet rock and his multi-tool giraffe set out on an adventure to stop Mr B’s evil plan and save your Papa!

The story is basically a rescue mission and quite transparent. What’s interesting about it though is the amazingly themed worlds the story takes you to. There is Treevale, which is Wilton’s home, Port-o-potty, a pirate themed world, Ubertown, which is a parody of Jurassic Park and Crablantis, an underwater world.

Each world is so well themed and looks amazing, making me want to explore every corner of them and talk to every one of the impressively high number of NPCs. In addition, each world has its own subplot that helps flesh out the main story of ‘find your father’. My favourite was the story of Crablantis, where Wilton and Sparkles have to find a magical pufferfish to help raise the city above the waves. I found each of the subplots and side missions really fun as they were planned out perfectly to fit into the main story. This meant completing them didn’t have to stray too far from the main quest and was more of a ‘well since I’m here, I might as well do it’ than a ‘oh god I have to go here to get this thing’.

The Game

The hook of the gameplay is 2D side-scrolling platforming with some very light puzzling. However, what’s unusual for the genre is that The Adventure Pals (TAP) also has a surprisingly large amount of combat in it too. Wilton is armed with his with his trusty sword and the whip-like Sparkles. Combat for me was my least favourite part of the game but I’ll talk about it in more detail later in the review.

On the other hand, the platforming was great! At first I found it quite slow, however as the game progresses new mechanics are added turning you into a platforming master. Using Sparkles’s tongue as a helicopter and her neck as a whip, Wilton can shoot around the map like a rocket. In addition, the levelling up system that unlocks new perks and moves evertime you reach a new level makes you feel stronger. By the end of the game, you feel like a bad ass, giving you a satisfying feeling that you ‘got good’ at the game.

Because of the awesome platforming, I loved exploring the worlds and levels of the game. There is 5 main worlds in TAP, four which I listed above and one more which I don’t want to spoil. In each of these worlds there are 6 stages which have 5 different levels, in addition to a battle arena and a few other surprises.

The thing that got me hooked and what makes me want to 100% the game is its collectables. In each level is a hidden cupcake that can be traded in groups of 5 to the Cupcake King. In return you get quirky hats for Winston and outfits for his pet rock. Furthermore, each stage has a sticker hidden in it that when found, gives a cute piece of artwork for the player to look at. There are 44 to find and the art ranges from some of the assets from the game, to characters from other sources that the game is clearly inspired by. The collectables aren’t a pain to find like in some other games and because of the epic platforming, I was encouraged and looked forward to finding them. At this time I still have a few stickers to find, then I will have 100% the game!

After completing each stage in a world there will be a boss battle. Each one is different from the other but all fall into the tropes of how you’d imagine a 2D boss battle to go. Though they weren’t revolutionary, the bosses themselves were totally unique and whacky! My favourite was the Veggiesauraus, who is a cruel twist on kids not wanting to eat their vegetables (as the Veggiesauraus in a vegetable that wants to eat a small child). Again, they were matched so perfectly to the overarching theme of their world!

Finally, I have to commend Massive Monsters for making TAP accessible to everyone. So many games (especially platforms) try and make themselves the ‘Dark Souls’ of their respective genre. It’s as if developers think that making their games as extremely hard and annoying as possible is a badge of honour to show how good of a developer they are. With its cartoony and Adventure Time aesthetic, TAP is going to be appealing for younger kids. I like that the difficulty curve is gradual and fair, meaning anyone can play it. For me it was nice to play a platformer that I enjoyed all the way through without screaming at my TV!

Art and Music

The art was what first drew me to the game. The developers are all for ‘blue skies in gaming’ and perfectly show that with TAP. Every level in the game looks unique and had me stopping and admiring the scenery. Whilst playing the game I also was astounded at how much detail Massive Monster put into it. Wilton’s facial features change when people are talking to him, cats that are used for puzzles get a little snorkel and pair of goggles when they’re under water and Wilton’s sword changes material the higher level he gets. All of these small details make a huge impact on the visuals of the game and show how much thought and care went into TAP’s development.

The music is charming. I especially liked the track on the summary scene after completing a stage. Furthermore, the Pavlov Pack acoustic guitar track had me busting out my own guitar and searching for the chords online (I couldn’t find them). What was a little disappointing was the sound design, especially in combat. The same sounding whack-whack-whack from sword hits grew very old, very quickly. But for me, this is only a small complaint.

Problems

Unfortunately I did have a few performance problems towards the end of the game with it crashing on me once and a huge amount of slow-down in combat arenas. This was such a shame as I couldn’t believe how well the game ran and looked on the Switch, especially in handheld mode where I spent most of my time in the game. I would argue that there is a little too much going on in combat, there is so much stuff flying around on screen that I wasn’t surprised the game struggled a little bit.

The combat was definitely the weakest part of the game. It was monotonous and made too easy with the inclusion of the Invisibility Potions that were easily and overly available. I found myself popping a potion and spamming Y next to enemies until they were all killed, occasionally hitting the left or right button to dodge an attack. Nevertheless, if you weren’t careful you could be quickly killed in combat. Enemies in the later game do high amounts of damage and tend to pinball you back and forth between each other until you die, which was extremely frustrating. I wish there was a light and heavy attack and more of a fleshed out combo system to make the combat a bit more interesting. Moreover, I think it would have been cool to use Sparkles more in the combat, other than just as a whip to pull you to enemies.

Finally, I was disappointed that Sparkles wasn’t really a character in the game, but just used as a mechanic. So much of the game’s marketing was based on this trippy looking giraffe. I had hoped she would play a bit more of a role in the game. More like the side kick role Jake plays to Finn in Adventure Time, which TAP is obviously inspired by. However, she just spent the game in Wilton’s backpack and didn’t make much of an impact on the story other than being the quirky mechanic.

Summary

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.

Therefore, I give The Adventure Pals by Massive Monster my rating of

I know a lot of you guys have picked up The Adventure Pals or plan to soon. Let me know over on Twitter or Discord what you think of my review. Are you an Adventure Time fan? What do you think of The Adventure Pals? Do you like that it somewhat copies the show?

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