Have you ever felt like you’re on the outside of a well-made product? You can tell that there is effort there, but for some reason, it just isn’t hitting you that well. Be it a movie, a game, or even something as simple as a song; you know that it’s well made, but yet, you just don’t care for it. That’s me with Metroidvania games. The main games that inspired this genre, the Metroid games, never really were able to rub off on me well, no matter what I tried. The one game in the series I could truly do like, Metroid Fusion, was only a seven out of ten for me. That’s not to say that I think the series is hot garbage; it just means that it’s not in my wheelhouse. So, when I say I only just like Animal Well, take that as me saying it’s a master of the Metroidvania genre.
Your journey has you being a small blob trapped in a land filled with animals. Some of these creatures will only want to avoid you, but most others are just going to be trying to dig into you just to kill you. Your objective is to track down the four flames, guarded by four different animals. To go through the well, you can’t fight back, but you can get tools to help you maneuver around the world and interact with puzzles to help solve them. However, even when you beat the game, the well is still there with plenty of other secrets for you to discover…
First things first, this game has mastered atmosphere down to a science. The well you’re trapped in and all the residents you have to deal with in there are all done with pixel art, and you can easily tell just what is what down there. The lighting is flawless, with certain objects giving off the light while others just rely on you having only a small sphere of light to go around. Despite it being pixel art, the game makes great use of art techniques to give life to the world around you. From using lines to give the game the look of being run on a CRT, using wavy lines and dimmed colors to give off the illusion of a river giving off a reflection, and the use of darkness varying throughout the map to help show just how well lit the well is at times and how claustrophobic it can be at times, in terms of graphics, there is nothing to complain about.
Audio can also join graphics in terms of being completely spot on. The game, for the PS5 at least, was able to not only have great atmospheric sounds throughout the well but also use the PS5’s controller speakers and vibrations to their fullest. When you’re doing small actions, like brushing past the grass, lighting a lantern, or even blowing a bubble, you can feel the controller not only vibrate just enough to match the action but also hear a small action coming from the speakers to signify what you did. It’s one of the few games that utilize these features of the controller that I played, so it’s nice to see that some developers are still trying to use these features to their fullest.
Now, for the part where I feel the most left out of when seeing others praising this game, the gameplay. The game doesn’t do combat that much and instead prioritizes you to move around and get out of the way of enemies, solve environmental puzzles, and get the four flames. Now, the puzzles are fine when you’re just going for the main story ending. You get to unlock items to use around the world to help you traverse and solve more puzzles to open up the world, with some items making you realize just where else in the world you can use them at. Each flame has you going through select certain parts of the world, being introduced to new and unique challenges exclusive to that region of the world. These challenges in the base game are all fun and exciting to go around and clear, especially when it comes to the main animals of each region.
These four beasts are the bosses that are guarding each flame. One is a boss fight that you have to bait into taking damage. The other three are more platforming challenges that have a boss to deal with and escape from. From using the boss’s attacks to your advantage to solve a puzzle to outrunning them while solving puzzles quickly before being taken over, the game is more focused on you using puzzles and platforming to solve your problems instead of fighting them head-on.
The real meat of this game comes from the eggs. There are 64 eggs for you to collect throughout the game. Some of these are out in the open and are a couple of jumps away, while most of the others require you to think outside the box to get them. Now, hidden collectibles are always fun to have, as they encourage replayability and critical thinking, but the problem comes in when it’s shown that a hidden layer of the gamer is hidden beneath collecting them all. With that in mind, simply getting the main ending can feel more like you just got the consolation prize ending instead of the real deal. Even after that, the game still has even more secrets that need to be solved and unlocked, with some requiring you to speed run through the game or even beat the game without dying once.
This turns the game into one that only the most hardcore Metroidvania fans would enjoy, leaving casual gamers who only partake in the genre out. It turns what’s usually an optional challenge into the main deal; do or die. Either go into this game wanting to collect and explore every inch of this game, which sometimes doesn’t play fair with item or egg placement, or don’t come in at all. Sure, I can just look at this game as a basic Metoridvania that focuses on platforming and puzzles more and just ignore the more in-depth puzzles, but then, it’s going to come down to if you feel like $25 is worth it for four to five hours of content. If you have PlayStation Plus Extra or Deluxe, then this game is available to download for free, and well worth checking out. Otherwise, it’s going to come down to how much you love Metroidvanias or what you see in pictures and videos. If any part looks interesting to you, even if you’re not a Metroidvania fan, you’re going to have some fun here.
Indie games being completed are always worth celebrating, even if you aren’t that big a fan of the finished product. Billy Basso did a great job with the game, and I’m proud to see Youtuber Jason Gastrow, aka videogamedunkey, use his publishing company BIGMODE to help publish this game. It’s inspiring to see common folk and Youtubers branch out into more things, and with the praise this game is receiving, it’s wonderful seeing them work in their niche.
But in the end, that’s what enjoyment of this game is going to come down to, niches. If you love Metroidvanias, then you’re going to get a lot more mileage and appreciation for this game than I have. The atmosphere is lovely with the pixel art and sound design. The use of the PS5 controller is skillful and lovingly crafted in a way I know isn’t seen in other game developers. However, the game could only really be a good seven out of ten to me in the end, with the gameplay being nice on the surface, but just personally finding what else the game is demanding of me to be too much for my liking.
For any fans of the genre, Animal Well would be a wonderful time that will scratch any itch you may have for a new type of Metroidvania. But for me, however, it’s just another look into a world that I could never fully enjoy. There’s nothing inherently wrong about it for the genre it’s in but feeling like I have to 100% something I only feel decently positive about instead of fully in love with just isn’t something I would say entices me. Have fun with this game, Metroidvania fans; for me, I’ll just be looking for another genre to sink my teeth into.
