Monday 3 December 2012

Check Please: Adventure Time



  About a week ago I blogged about Adventure Time: Hey Ice King!  Why’d You Steal Our Garbage?  I commented then about the positive feel of the game, while addressing concerns about how quickly I was blazing through it.

  The final tally for Adventure Time is now just under nine hours, a figure that I feared going in.  Others could play for more or less time, mainly because of how long I was wandering around lost on Ice King’s mountain, the first time around.  For clarity, this number includes the extra campaign, which features slightly hard enemies.  They’d have to get a lot tougher to pad out this game.

Value Assessment

  I bought the collector’s version for $40, about average for 3DS titles.  At that price it kept me busy for about a week, playing through one hour sessions at a time.  It didn’t really stand up in terms of length, and if I could address that challenge alone, I might simply add two or more “lands” to the land of Ooo.  The battle difficulty and acrobatic challenges are just about where I wanted them, and fit a nice difficulty curve. 

  The extras look nice, but they don’t add much to the experience.  I never really used the Sword stylus, nor did I need to.  The Book of Beasts and the map seem like nice swag, but are likewise supplementary.

  I found the music to be very satisfying, with a surprising quantity and quality of voice work.  It certainly makes me wish that more work went into the music player.  Unlocked at the end of the second quest, it’s a one button affair that accesses music sequentially and plays until the music is stopped.  Given that all of the music is ambient, a better player with more common features could allow the game to double as a music album.  I know it’s standard for video game music player design, but that standard hasn’t been updated since Kirby’s Dream Land – it might be due for a redesign. 
The question of how worthwhile is this purchase is a tough one.  I’m mostly satisfied, as Adventure Time carries some of the best spritework and music I’ve seen in a while.  Fans of the show will no doubt be disappointed as the actors voices are kept to a minimum.  The short campaign is backed by an extra quest, but it doesn’t lend itself to much replay value. 

  I think I’ll hold on to my copy, and I think I’ll even take in some of the show on Cartoon Network.  The sense of humor is addictive.

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