I'll use PGC's review system...
Platformers are a dime a dozen on the Gameboy so I'm personally looking for something a little different when I buy one. Rare's Sabre Wulf provides just that, and it's a truly polished, great game!
The graphics use Rare's tried and true 3D modelled sprites, but they don't have the same visual punch as they did when Donkey Kong Country debuted back in '94. They're still very nice, but they didn't blow me away. Character design in particular is a bit of a mish-mash. Most of the monsters look pretty cool, but some are weird or out of place, and the humans that you meet on the map screens often look like uninspired versions of Wallace and Gromit characters. In spite of these complaints, the game still looks great with nice animation, loads of details, and some cool shadow effects.
The sound is simply outstanding. Sabreman spouts lots of funny old-fashioned Britishisms like "Gently, Bently!" and most of the other sound effects are appropriately cartoony without being overwhelming or obnoxious. The music is all high quality adventure stuff: perhaps a tad predictable and repetitive, but still some of the best music I've heard on the Gameboy.
Sabre Wulf's controls are extremely simple, which gives it a sort of old-school charm. Instead of earning dozens of moves, Sabreman himself can do nothing more than run and jump. He has to rely on a bag full of good monsters to get past the obstacles in his path. The bag is opened by pressing B, then the player chooses a monster and places it using the D-Pad. It's pretty clever, allowing lots of flexibility without much complexity. Sabreman's jumping and turning are a little unresponsive, but nothing too serious. My only major complaint about the controls is that everything keeps on moving while you search through your bag and place monsters, making some sections unecessarilly frantic since getting speeding through the levels as quickly as possible is key to getting 100% in the game.
The game has kind of an old-school meets new-school feel to it. On the new side, the levels are all held together by an interconnected world map that feels a lot like Rare's recent 3D platformers. On the map you can interact with other characters and complete a few side-quests. On the old-school side, once you enter one of the Wulf's lairs you are presented with simple, enemy-infested, side-scrolling maps. Simple controls, one or two-hit deaths, and the game's reliance on devious enemy placement really make it feel like a relic of the 8-bit or 16-bit era - in a good way. After you get past the enemies in the level Sabreman steals a treasure from Sabre Wulf and races back to the safety of his tent. The races are a bit too easy early on because Sabre Wulf follows a predictable pattern but as the level designs get more complicated, safely outrunning him becomes a real challenge. Choosing the right monsters to get past various enemies and obstacles introduces a fun, mild puzzle element to the game, but it's still very action-oriented.
The game is fairly big but the levels tend to be bite-size and players can save at any time, so it won't last terribly long. Beating the game without completing most side-quests or challenges would take around eight hours, but you'll probably want to complete the side quests for a better ending, which may take more than ten hours. Luckily the side-quests are not too hard or tedious, I thought they stopped short of becoming a chore like the collecting in some of Rare's other games and most players will gladly finish the side-quests for a better ending. On that topic, I was a little disappointed in the game's "regular" ending. I have no problem with giving a bonus for finishing the side-quests, but the regular ending is very unsatisfying. Not a huge deal, just a minor annoyance.
On top of the main quest and the side quests, the game requires you beat each level in a certain amount of time if you want to earn 100% and it also includes a challenge mode where you have to beat the levels with limited monsters. These modes may not be compelling enough to play all the way through, but they should add a few hours of replay value to the game, maybe bringing it up to 20 hours or more if you dedicate yourself to beating everything.
The levels themselves range from boringly easy early on to very challenging later on. This brings up one issue with the game: it starts out slow. Besides being a little too easy early on (the Wulf races are particularly boring), the player is also presented with lots of side-quests but no way to even start on them let alone complete them until much later on. Having said that, if you stick with Sabre Wulf it turns out to be an excellent game.
Pros: Nice graphics, great sound, original and fun gameplay.
Cons: Starts out slowly, regular ending is disappointing, selecting monsters is difficult under pressure.
Overall: A game that starts out good and ends off great, Sabre Wulf is definitely worth checking out. I really appreciate the original design and the game is just plain charming. Highly recommended unless you absolutely hate puzzles of any kind.
GRAPHICS: 8.5 SOUND: 10 CONTROL: 8.0 GAMEPLAY: 9.0 LASTABILITY: 8.0
FINAL: 9.0
Topic: Sabre Wulf Review (Read 2622 times)
