Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
Badland: Game of the Year Edition is a side scrolling physics focused action adventure puzzle platform game available for download from the PlayStation Store for the PS Vita, PS4 and PS3. Badland was originally released on iOS platforms in April 2013 and go on to having over 20 million players, become an award winning game by achieving Apple’s 2013 iPad Game of the Year Award and the 10th annual International Mobile Gaming Awards Grand Prix Award in 2014, followed by a Game of the Year Edition release for PS4, PS3 and portably for Vita in May 2015 in America and Europe.
The premise revolves around saving Clony’s friends referred to as Clones by gathering them into a team and guiding them to the end of the level. Badland: Game of the Year Edition’s Vita release has over 100 levels in total and contains over 4 times the amount of content in comparison to the original version when it launched on iOS. The single player alone including 100 levels comprising of 40 levels in day 1 and another 40 levels in day 2 with 10 levels set at dawn, noon, dusk and night for both days, while there are 2 additional sets of 10 levels called Daydream and Doomsday with every level containing 3 missions such as saving a certain amount of Clones, surviving an entire level within a certain number of attempts and collecting all power-ups, all of which total up to an incredible 300 missions.
The first few levels act as an introduction in regards to how the lead character Clony moves around the surrounding environments, although very quickly new gameplay elements emerge at a rapid pace which has to be overcome in order to continue any form of progression. A major gameplay element challenges players to keep ahead of the ever moving camera which pans across continuously, therefore if players are not quite fast enough overcoming an obstacle or puzzle, then Clony will become stuck and have to restart from the previous checkpoint which is also the case if Clony is squashed by a falling rock or pipe and any Clones who do not keep up with the camera will also be lost in the process. A further gameplay element includes collecting larger bulbs which makes Clony and his surrounding friendly Clones larger and heavier to push through and beyond certain heavier obstacles, although collecting smaller bulbs makes Clony and all surrounding Clones smaller and lighter to aid in squeezing past tighter spots.
There are full replays for every completed level including the functionality to replay a level in slow motion, normal speed or fast forward, while players can also view key moments from levels such as a Clone being unfortunately squashed in slow motion and restarting the replay at any given moment with full level replays being an exceptional design choice and a rather accessible one too which is not even a feature that would be anticipated from games in the platform, puzzle, action or adventure genres.
The character design centres around cute and cuddly creatures called Clones that are at their centre essentially an individual blob of various sizes with flappable wings, small white eyes and a colour circling their eyes depending upon their surrounding environment which works in perfect harmony with the environment design which is a character in itself, albeit an evil one as it sets out to trap or squash every single Clone trying to navigate through its confinements which will certainly make players feel guilty countless times for the demise of numerous Clones.
Badland: Game of the Year Edition supports cross-buy and cross-save between the PS4, PS3 and Vita. Cross-buy presents a superb amount of value as it means that players will be purchasing the PS4, PS3 and Vita versions of the game with just a single purchase. The cross-save functionality allows players to sync the progression of the save file from the Vita to the PS3 or PS4 and vice versa, so players can start playing the game on the Vita on the way to and from work, sync the save game upon returning home and then resuming where they left off by loading the save game and continuing via the PS3 or PS4 version. The cross-save feature is made possible by uploading the save file to the cloud on one console and downloading it from the other.
The controls are minimalist yet incredibly well worked and efficient as the face button control scheme consists of pressing X to increase the tempo of movement by flapping the Clone’s wings, increasing the height of the Clone’s flight by holding X or lowering the height of the Clone’s flight by momentarily not holding X, while directing the path of the Clones further forwards or backwards by using the left analogue stick or the left and right d-pad buttons with the only other face buttons included in the control scheme are pressing square to restart from the most recent checkpoint and pressing O or start to display the pause menu. The touch screen control scheme consists of tapping any area of the touch screen to increase the momentum and height of the Clone’s flight or lowering the height of the Clone’s flight by removing any contact with the touch screen, while tapping the pause icon displays the pause menu, although there is no rear touch pad control scheme.
Badland: Game of the Year Edition has visually stunning graphics that possess such eye popping characters and environments which are stylistically reminiscent of PSP exclusive series LocoRoco and Patapon, while being complimented by the Vita’s 5 inch OLED touch screen and fluent pacing of gameplay.
The presentation of the game is solid with a great touch screen based user interface across various menus such as the main, game mode, level selection, options, online leaderboards and various gameplay menus with support for navigation via the left and right analogue sticks, directional pad, face buttons and touch screen. The background of the menu screens looks very colourful and vibrant with luscious foliage, rotating contraptions, particle effects of flies buzzing around and shining in the sunlight as Clones sit upon the bark of a tree.
The audio comprises of a variety of sound effects such as the Clones interacting with objects including the bark of a tree, flowers, fan blades, pipes and rocks by colliding or bouncing off them, Clones being squished by fast rotating fan blades or falling rocks, while there are also ambient sound effects such as creatures calling out from the wild, flies buzzing and birds tweeting which appropriately sets the tone, although there is no music during gameplay despite there being music played during the menus which could have further complimented the atmosphere created by the ambience during gameplay.
The trophy list includes 43 trophies with 30 bronze, 9 silver, 3 gold and 1 platinum trophy including 12 secret ones. There are easier trophies such as the Not Forever Alone bronze trophy for playing a competitive multiplayer round as well as a lot of trophies which can be earned through natural progression such as the Badlander bronze trophy for completing all the Day I Dawn levels in single player, while there are some harder trophies such as the New Thumb Please gold trophy for completing all 80 levels with one try in single player. It is estimated that depending upon skill and a good trophy guide to provide some helpful tips that it would take between 20 to 25 hours to platinum the trophy list.
There are no difficulty levels, although the difficulty curve is quite noticeable as there are gradually more traps and obstacles to overcome as well as the introduction of new gameplay elements to learn quickly in order to continue progressing throughout the large amount of levels the game has to offer; therefore the difficulty is as hard as players find the puzzles, traps and obstacles to be within each of the levels.
Despite having no online multiplayer features; Badland: Game of the Year Edition achieves an amazing feet that not many Vita games can and that is simultaneous 4 player multiplayer on the same Vita! For a 5 inch screen this is understandably quite hard to achieve, but it is made possible by sharing a complete screen rather than having split-screen and fully utilising the Vita’s multiple control schemes by having one player use the face buttons and analogue sticks, while up to 3 players use the touch screen to move a Clone of their choice. It is highly innovative to have such functionality utilised on the Vita and it works extremely well in both local co-operative multiplayer in which players work together to guide as many Clones to the end of the level as possible and even in competitive multiplayer in which players are competing to be the final Clone standing in a level with a results table which tallies up the points for all players involved after each round. There are an astounding 100 levels comprising of 300 missions which are progressively unlocked as players progress through co-operative multiplayer together, while the competitive multiplayer has 27 levels to choose from with the options to have up to 10 levels and up to 99 rounds.
The online leaderboards focuses on the amount of Clones saved and missions completed in single player and co-op with each leaderboard containing each player’s rank, name (PSN ID) and the amount of Clones saved or missions completed with the positioning of each player based upon the amount of Clones or missions completed, while showing first position and the placing on the worldwide leaderboards and the placing of those interacting with the player on the friends leaderboards.
The replayability is provided from a number of areas including 100 levels which can be played in single player or co-operative for 2 to 4 players and an additional 27 competitive multiplayer levels, 3 mission objectives for every level providing a reason to revisit every level until all 3 missions have been completed for each and every single player and co-op level, competitive online leaderboards for single player and co-op missions and full replays of completed levels which collectively offers a huge amount of content to bring players back for quite some time, especially as the excellent co-op and competitive modes allow players to share the experience.
Overall, Badland: Game of the Year Edition deserves its Game of the Year Awards on iOS and deserves even more accolades on Vita as it delivers exceptional quality throughout with excellent co-op and competitive modes only adding even more to a genuinely satisfying experience with features such as full level replays really showing just how much effort has been invested into making the game as good as possible; therefore if you are a fan of puzzle, action, adventure or platforming genres, then Badland: Game of the Year Edition is undeniably worth a purchase on Vita with triple cross-buy for Vita, PS4 and PS3.
Jason Bonnar
Analysis
- Title: Badland: Game of the Year Edition
- Developer: Frogmind and Blitworks
- Publisher: Frozenbyte
- System: PS4, PS3 and PS Vita
- Format: PSN Download
- Cross-Buy: Yes (PS4, PS3 and PS Vita)
- Cross-Play: Yes (Cross-Save)
- Players: 1-4 (Local Competitive and Co-operative Multiplayer)/Online Leaderboards
- Memory Card Space Required: 129MB