de Blob

"Viva la Color Revolution!"

After the Wii began to really make itself a name in the gaming market, game creators began to develop odd and obscure titles on the system. We've had Mario, Zelda, Metroid, and the like, but experimental Wii games quickly popped up in the gaming cornucopia. Beyond Wii Sports, beyond WarioWare, developers began to try new things with gaming. Mixing genres, concocting presentation designs, and creating new characters was just the beginning. And what do we have here? A genre-mixing original IP featuring a tremendous amount of style and presentation flair? You bet. Welcome to the world of de Blob, one of the Wii's most experimental, but undeniably creative titles.

de Blob takes place in Chroma City, a usually bright and colorful world full of expressive hues. All seems well until the INKT company seizes control of the city, enslaving the locals, erasing the color, and turning the once peaceful city into their headquarters of color condemnation. Fortunately for the citizens of Chroma City, a small group of underground rebels enlist the help of Blob, an amorphous creature who aims to stop INKT once and for all. Blob possesses the rare skill to absorb color and paint upon things simply by touching them. The story is played out through quirky cutscenes and comic-book-style conversations before levels begin. There's a ton of expressiveness in Blob and his heroic friends, and you'll no doubt crack a smile when an INKT elite gets defeated by Blob. The entire story's portrayal of Blob and crew is very funny, and it also adds a huge amount of style and clever action to give Blob his own personality. He's not the deepest of heroes, but Blob's expressiveness develops the story considerably.

Controlling Blob is a bit obscure but it works generally well. You roll around using the Nunchuk's analog stick, control the camera with the Wii Remote's D-Pad, and brake with the B-Trigger. Jumping is a bit of an ordeal, as you must swing the Wii Remote to accomplish it. This can wear on your wrist after a while, especially with it being a platforming game. Also, you can lock-on enemies using the Z button, but you must use the Wii Remote swinging motion to attack enemies too. Holding the A button shows a handy compass, which shows where paint supplies, specific objectives, or water are available. The camera can be difficult to deal with as well, especially when close to buildings. All in all, the controls could've been tighter (specifically the jump command) but once you get the handle on Blob's rolling and exploring motions, the controls do feel respectively accomplished, and get the job done.

Gameplay in de Blob is an odd mix of traditional platforming like Mario and the dramatic-scope-induced quirkiness of Katamari Damacy, with just a pinch of open-world gameplay like GTA or Assassin's Creed. The game initially sets Blob into a monochrome region of Chroma City, with the overall objective to re-color the region by rolling around different buildings and rooftops using Blob's painting skill. Blob must use paint from Paintbots to re-color the world, as coloring landmarks require one unit of paint energy to be colored. Blob can mix colors by attacking multiple Paintbot types, leaving plenty of room to experiment with how you paint the town.

Throughout the level, Blob can take on missions from his fellow resistance pals. These missions are pretty simple, ranging from four different types: securing posts by dispensing color, painting certain landmarks a certain color, race missions, and defeating-enemy missions. These do feel a small bit repetitive, but they progressively get more challenging throughout. The ultimate goal of each stage is to reach the end of the level. This must be accomplished by earning enough Color Energy, essentially a score which increases with mission completion or simply coloring more landmarks. Once a score reaches a specific number, Blob can progress to another side of the level and gain access to more ways to earn points. The whole stage is under a time limit, which is actually rather forgiving because completing missions gains you extra time, leaving with a very lax amount of time. In fact, a full level can take a huge amount of time, mostly in part to the overall length of the level. One level can last up to an hour or more. Being that there aren't many levels altogether is disappointing as well, but the game has plenty of objectives, missions, extras to find, and some special secrets that reward quick or comprehensive playthroughs. Unlockable Free Paint modes sever the time limit and let Blob simply paint however you want, and multiplayer modes are great with friends. But that's really beside the point: de Blob is easily one of the most original and resultantly fun games released on the Wii console. It has its share of gameplay missteps, but it's a blast to play.

de Blob wants you to notice its visual design from the minute the game starts spinning in your Wii system. It's a massive assault of visual vibrancy, constantly shoving as much color and intensity in your face as possible, and the game benefits from it. At the start, you'll see a monochromatic world filled with the typical shades of gray, but once Blob starts rolling about the world, blasts of paints cover the world, changing the level into a multi-colored explosion of color. The textures are superbly rendered, the animations are creative and expressive, and the pure fluidity of how the color appears throughout the levels is absolutely incredible. de Blob is hands-down one of the most visually stunning games to come on any system in the past few years, but it follows up with some excellent sound design as well. Before each venture into Chroma City, the player can select from a list of musical moods to play while you're painting the town. The music is upbeat and stylized, complimenting the amazing visual design with some funky tracks that add plenty of character to Blob and his justice-bringing buddies. The voice acting is intentionally garbled, similar to Banjo-Kazooie, but it's creatively characterized and it triumphantly adds even more to de Blob's already bottomless reserve of style. You won't find a game on the Wii with this much honed precision to its presentation. It simply must be seen (and heard) to be believed.

Pros
+ Stunning art design
+ Plenty of free-world challenges, objectives, and collectibles
+ Great music
+ Purely original

Cons
- Did the jump command have to be used by swinging the Wii Remote?
- Levels can feel too long

The Wii is full of creative titles, but de Blob really sets the record straight when it comes to being original. The absolutely stellar presentation shines as one of the most inventive integration of graphics to gameplay seen in a long time. The different challenges pose plenty of difficulty, uniqueness, and charm across the board. The game's remarkably designed story creates an unforgettable style for itself; you'll no doubt be drawn back to it just to see the Inkies fall one more time. Though the controls can feel wonky, exploring Chroma City as Blob is a fun experience. The levels tend to lean towards “endurance challenge” territory, but it's tough to demerit de Blob when there's so much to do, collect, and explore, all while looking amazing. At the end of the day, de Blob stays true to platformer tradition, but adds in a ton of unique gameplay and presentation elements to make a stew worthy of a gamer's appetite. If you like platformers, open-world games, adventure titles, or anything with style, de Blob delivers in spades. de Blob stands alongside the Nintendo elite as a clever and entertaining game; if you're a Wii owner, you can't go wrong with de Blob.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 07/21/09

Game Release: de Blob (US, 09/22/08)