A Boy and His Blob NES Review - JUST PLAIN WEIRD

This game COULD HAVE BEEN great. It wasn't. 3.5 / 5

It could have been great because the concept is extremely original. You play as a nameless boy who traverses through underground caverns with your shapeless alien friend, Blobert. By feeding this blob jellybeans of different flavors, you can turn it (him?) into different things, which can help you solve puzzles. There is usually a cheesy pun associated with this transformation. For example, feed your blob a apple jellybean, and it will transform into a jack (get it?).

This sounds a lot more fun than it actually is, due to some major gameplay problems. Read on.

DIFFICULTY: Moderate to difficult. While the puzzles aren't that tough and the enemies are morons, the game is made much more difficult because of poor controls, few lives, and lack of save/continue options. The game is relatively short, so it is beatable with a walkthrough and with a lot of patience.

PLOT: In the 21st century (the future, in relation to when the game was made), a blob named Blobert travels from its home planet of Blobolonia to seek help. An evil emperor has seized control of the planet, and is forcing everyone to eat only junkfood. You agree to help this blob by travelling back to its home planet and killing the emperor with vitamins.
The major reason why this plot makes no sense is the way in which you must go about finding those vitamins. Apparently, in the future, vitamins are horrendously expensive, and you are forced to find burried treasure to pay for them. Fortunatley, there are caverns full of treasure burried under your subway (obviously) and these are easily obtainable with the help of your blob. Feed it jellybeans, and it will morph into various tools to help you find the treasure. Makes perfect sense, doesn't it?

GAMEPLAY: This is where the game really tanks. While the blob morphing concept is fun for about five minutes, the game is soon reduced to trial-and-error guessing. Unfortunately, there is little room for the ERROR part, since you only have five lives for the entire first half of the game and your supply of jellybeans is limmeted. There is no save/continue option, which means you must beat the entire game in one sitting. Puzzles aside, the actual enemy-dodging is incredibly poorly done. Most enemies are invincible (or regenerating) and they bounce around about a quarter of a millimeter from your head all the time. Fortunately, there are few enemies to deal with (at least in the first half of the game).
Control is atrocious. Your character always moves like he is walking on ice, which is especially annoying around ledges and enemies. Also, getting the blob into the right spot can be a major problem.
The worst part of the gameplay, however, is the fact that the entire first half of the game is wasted. This is the half played on Earth, devoted to finding treasure to buy vitamins. The thing is, you don't even NEED vitamins to beat the game. Very few enemies can actually be hurt by vitamins, and they are usually avoidable without them. In fact, the only thing preventing you from skipping the first half completely is the fact that one crucial flavor of jellybean must be found. You use this flavor only once in the entire game (but it is required), and you have to get through the entire network of caverns before finding any.

GRAPHIC: The graphics are below average, even for NES. Your character is highly pixillated. Enemies are colorless and unrecognizable. Your blob is semi-well-rendered, but how hard can it be to render a BLOB? Other characters are non-existant.
The backgrounds are the only good part of the game, graphics-wise. Unfortunately, the first half of the game is spent in underground caverns, where there are no backgrounds.

MUSIC: There are about two tunes which consist of about five repeating notes and sound exactly the same. Fortunatley, they are not TOO annoying.

SOUND: What sound?

LASTING APPEAL: Not much. The game is quite short (one hour, minimum), and there are no side-quests to bring you back to the game.

HIGHS: Original concept

LOWS: Poor graphics, poor sound, poor controls, trial-and-error puzzles, no save/continue, short

BOTTOM LINE: 3.5 is being very generous. Play it for a change of pace, but don't expect to be blow away.

-Matthew Maas