Who doesn't love an adventure?
I recently got ahold of a review code of the collaboration between Armor Games Studios and Massive Monsters, The Adventure Pals. You get to team up with a rock and a giraffe and go on all kinds of interesting adventures. You’ll get to explore different areas and play the same area again and again to get better grades and more points.
The game has RPG elements as well like leveling up and obtaining different abilities when you level up. If you play levels again, you’ll be able to level up twice as fast and unlock more abilities because some of the abilities stay with you throughout the gameplay or stack. One of my main pieces of advice is to attack everything because you don’t know what will give out experience points/blue orbs so collect everything. Some of the levels have different achievements for you to finish, otherwise known as different adventures for you to complete.
One level has you collecting a certain number of berries that are locked inside treasure chests whereas another level has you collecting sand. The missions all have a purpose as you’re trying to rescue your family from the sinister Dr. B but it won’t be easy. You’ll be tasked with collecting gems in most of the levels and then using those gems to pay Mr. B as ransom. Some of the levels have you collecting the gems for other reasons such as paying your rock pal’s father back for bailing you out of jail but you will have to collect them all!
Mr. B’s plan involves turning innocent people into hot dog people and you have to rescue them as well and you’ll find them in each level. You can attack them just like an enemy to set the townsfolk free. The Adventure Pals has plenty of collectables in the levels such as cupcakes, gems, sticker book, and anything else that you have been tasked with collecting for that level. This removes the repetition factor in the game because the platforming does get stale pretty quick as the levels are set up in very similar fashions.
There are boss fights that also remove this staleness but the platforming in those levels are the same as the rest. Collect cupcakes in each stage to get secret hats and other accessories for your Adventure Pal party like a new hat or costume from the cupcake cat at the shop in each area. You can collect 5 in each level and some are pretty well hidden so keep an eye out while playing. The sticker book is also hidden in each stage and you can find this to add to your grade at the end of the level. If you can find the sticker book in the level, you will get to a new sticker added to your collection. Some of the more interesting interactions come from your teammates where you have a giraffe that has a helicopter tongue and can be used as a wrench.
Your rock buddy can be thrown at targets and switches to activate them and the costumes you can unlock for him are really cute. You can tell that it takes a page out of classic cartoons in terms of graphics and the writing. One of my favorite pieces of writing comes when you interact with one of the townsfolk about the wishing wells that connect the different parts of the levels. The person says that they much cleaner than the sewer system that the Mushroom kingdom uses! I always like little things like that because it shows that the developers went that extra mile to put some charm and fun into the final product.
You can interact with the overworld map as well and collect coins to buy things such as healing potions or bombs. You’ll also have the chance to find these items in the levels but buying them couldn’t hurt. Potions can come in handy because the enemies sometimes do large amounts of damage and if you’re not careful, you could die. You start the next segment of the level at full health but if you die before you get there, it won’t do you any good!
To recap, The Adventure Pals is the silly adventure of a kid, rock, and giraffe trying to rescue his family from an evil super villain who plans to turn people into hot dogs. You can helicopter jump with the giraffe and throw the rock while on your quest! The platforming is solid but the levels are similarly styled and repetition could creep it’s ugly head into things. It’s these reasons I’m giving The Adventure Pals for the PlayStation 4 an 8.5 out of 10. I would like to thank Armor Games Studios/Massive Monsters for the review code.