Every now and again a developer comes along and tries something new with established genres. Sometimes these new ideas breathe new life into things and make them feel fresh. Others miss the miss the mark and become odd curios. Enter Skully, a platformer that channels Marble Madness with a little hint of Knack. Sounds like a strange combo doesn’t it? Well to a certain extent it is, but it the team should be commended for trying something different.
Polytheism? In My Video Games?
The story focuses on the story of four warring gods who are trying to get hold of a magical doodad. As expected, each of them hopes to use the power contained within to reshape the world. The twist here, is that they are all part of the same family, so the story is more about sibling rivalry than just straight up good guy fights bad guy stuff. This in itself adds an inter dynamic to proceedings and helps drive the story forwards.
Throughout a journey that covers 18 levels, set over seven unique worlds, you’ll face Wanda the Water Goddess, Brent the Wind God and Fiona the Fire Goddess. Each provide a variety of platforming and puzzle challenges with the fourth, Ethan the earth god, providing narration and trying his best to reunite the family. He is also the one who give the titular Skully sentience and hopes they can combine powers to set things right.
When you aren’t rolling around the environments, you are able to possess pools of clay that can summon one of three golems. The first you come across is akin to The Incredible Hulk and their main power is smashing stuff. The second let’s you move more quickly and manipulate rocks to make platforms with the third can raise and lower rocks as well as double jump.
As each golem is introduced you’ll be given puzzles designed for that particular golem, but eventually there is a need to combine their powers to navigate the levels. Puzzles are generally simple and relatively easy to figure out. These boil down to smashing through walls, creating platforms and that’s pretty much it. There is some combat when using Hulk-guy but mostly it’s rolling, jumping and avoiding the various hazards based on each of the gods’ elemental powers.
Platforming Woes
Whilst the puzzles are easy, the platforming is a test of patience. Skully rolls really quickly and can be quite awkward to control at times. It’s also insanely easy to get stuck on scenery or fall off platforms. A few of the levels also channel Crash Bandicoot and see you running away from something usually away from the camera. It’s a nice change of pace but the camera is poor and makes long jumps a pain.
Not only that but jumping heights and distances can be inconsistent due to the physics based movement. Higher speed usually equal longer distance, but stationary movement doesn’t always give you extra height and can see you getting lodged under ledges. The sensitive movement speed, combined with small platforms leaves very little room for error.
When you get a little stuck under a platform it’s easy to find yourself being pinged off at an awkward angle and falling into something that’s likely to kill you. There is a health bar so sometimes you can pull yourself out of a sticky situation, but more often than not, death is inevitable.
Functional Visuals, Fantastic Voice-Work
Graphically it’s nothing to write home about. Whilst the textures on the scenery are of a relatively high quality it can look a tad bland. With everything being based in nature it leaves little room for the devs to have gone wild with experimentation. Skully is nicely detailed as are the golem models.
The four gods look nice in the cutscenes but these are weird. Rather than being fully animated, it’s a bit like a slideshow with only the most basic of movement. Presentation overall though is on the primitive side. There are some technical issues as well and I encountered the occasional bout of slowdown even on Xbox One X.
On the flip side, a lot of work has been put into the voice acting. There’s some really good performances in here. Terry’s narration and his interaction with the voiceless Skully are filled with excitement and he has quite a few funny lines.
The back-and-forth between the siblings is fun and they really do sound like a bickering family. Wanda is pure sarcasm. Brent is like a hyperactive teen. Fiona is the edgy goth who hates everything. The character types are pretty stereotypical of a family unit but I enjoyed the banter.
Hit and Miss
It’s a shame the package as a whole is so hit and miss. There’s a nice challenge to the parts where you roll about as Skully, despite being occasionally frustrating. However, the levels are a bit uninspired and the puzzles are basic and limited.
However, the actors seem to have put a lot of passion into their performances and I wanted to keep going to see how the story played out. It’s a nice idea for a game but it just doesn’t quite come together. I always welcome someone trying something new but I can’t say this is worth the entry fee.