

EXP ups your overall level, increasing your base stats incrementally and providing no more excitement than a rainy afternoon watching Tipping Point. Let me explain.Īs a rat, you may have a quest that's like, "Poison 20 enemies". To unlock more, you'll need to complete quests specific to certain forms. At first, you're only able to transform into a rat, letting you sneak into small passageways and poison enemies with vicious bites. These can take many forms: a bodybuilder that bench presses enemies, a horse that trots fast, a slug that leaves sticky gloop in its wake.

One thing the game gets – mostly – right is its transformations. Is this a world you want to save? Well, I guess so. The joke is that you're playing an RPG, but the punchline grows weaker as you progress. The game commits so hard to its referential humour that it's often overly dismissive. Sure, you earn some EXP, but this recompense feels hollow without meaningful stories. He's since disappeared, so that's why I've used this image of a random mutant.Īid almost any NPC and they'll hit you with a snappy thanks. I did so, hoping to find out a bit more about this fella now that I'd secured him his tools. I was to enter the shop on four separate occasions, disguising myself as four different humans using my shapeshifting ability, and purchase a fake knife each time. A shady magician wanted to procure some fake knives from a shop, so he tasked me with duping the shopkeeper inside. "You look strong, can you help me defeat some monsters?". NPCs you encounter may be quirky, but conversations are brief meta lines to make you chuckle or basic fetch quests. The world may be beautiful, but it is simply "The World", a generic fantasy realm with little history. Nobody Saves The World knows it's riffing off classics like The Legend Of Zelda, and while this self-awareness leads to some fun references, the game traps itself in a sort of nonchalance. It's a shame, then, that these interactions are few and that many of the game's characters rarely have much of value to say. The way he switches between frantic to conniving is magnificent. Colourful portraits bring his character to life: jealousy is bulging eyes, a gaping jaw, and text that rattles. One of my favourites is Randy the Red, a spiteful wizard who believes he's Nostramagus' true heir, not some little nobody like you. The game has a playful charm about it, with bizarre characters that spit funny quips.

You've got little towns and thick jungles and arid deserts all rendered in this gorgeous, cartoony aesthetic. With this great power, you must dungeon-crawl in a bid to gather the scattered pieces of a magical gemstone capable of burning away the blight, and most importantly, saving the world.Īnd what a lovely world it is, despite the rampaging mutant issue. In you step as Nobody, a deflated Michelin Man who inherits Nostramagus' powers and can shapeshift into various forms as a result. A great mage called Nostramagus usually keeps these at bay but, in classic fashion, he's gone missing. In Nobody Saves The World, said world has succumbed to The Calamity, a dark force that's mutated its residents into blubbery eyes that spit spikes and sentient puddles of acid. Charming characters and clever mighty-morphin' combat succumb to numbers, which reduces what could've been a rich world to a rather hollow dash between dungeons. This is a dungeon-crawler that lets you shapeshift into horses, bodybuilders, and ghosts in your bid to save the world, but it's a quest blighted not only by a Calamity, but by repetition too. Something is missing from Nobody Saves The World, a new action RPG from Guacamelee devs DrinkBox Studios. Despite that colour, and some really fun moments, repetitive dungeon-crawls mean you're not so much saving the world as clearing it. An action RPG that has you shapeshifting through a colourful world.
