Wik: The Fable of Souls

"One of the best titles on the Live Arcade"

Wik was one of the quirky titles I downloaded and wanted to play. But the demo was too short and the price too high for me to pass final judgment. Well, I got the Unplugged collection and it contains this game. Is it worth the points though?

Wik tells the story of a little creature who is asked to find all of the gems to release some souls and to help little creatures called Grubs. The plot while basic in told in a poetic text style but it uses a single still image so as you advance it feels like a graphic novel come to life.

For an Xbox Live Arcade game Wik looks very good. The graphics are very sharp and have an urban feel to them. It's easy to make stuff out but I do have one problem. In the upper right of the screen is your Grub meter and at times it will block your view of gems or Grubs. Otherwise this is one of the better looking Arcade titles.

No voice work is featured in this game and to be honest I remember no music at all. Of course the game has a fast pace so I guess I never paid attention to any music. The sound effects are slightly generic. Just a sucking sound, a sound of something flying by and explosions. There are some other minor sounds but nothing special.

The game uses a weird control scheme and at first it's difficult but it becomes second nature during the levels. You aim with the left analog stick. Hit A to jump to where the arrow is pointing. B latches onto things and Y sucks stuff up. It's very simple but without being able to move besides jumping it can feel a little weird at first.

As I said above you can't move in this game but that's okay because it's something that makes this game stand out. See, the goal of the game is to save a specific amount of Grubs per level. You don't always have to save all of them and there is a meter that shows where you stand on your goal and how many total there are.

So you need to hop around, swing from branches and floating platforms to get to Grubs and toss them to your purple friend down below. But there is a catch. Enemies start to come and try taking your Grub away so you need to suck up smaller enemies and shoot them, suck up fireflies and use them as bombs to kill scorpions or to suck up an acorn to kill a poison filled enemy.

So the game turns out to be a puzzle game with an action twist. There are around 120 story mission so that should keep you busy for a while. There is also a challenge mode and a bonus puzzle mode. S there's a lot of game here for the buck. The achievements are also pretty good and require a little bit of work but don't seem impossible.

I'd recommend either grabbing this title on Xbox Live or get the Unplugged disc if it's cheap enough but that Unplugged disc has 6 games so don't buy it if you already own them. Wik is one of the better Live arcade games though and at least give the demo a try.

Story - 8/10
Graphics - 9/10
Sound - 8/10
Control - 8/10
Game Play - 9/10
Replay Value - 9/10

Final Score - 9/10

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 10/22/07

Game Release: Wik: The Fable of Souls (US, 12/14/05)