Mugsters is a delightful isometric puzzle adventure game that takes place on fun island sized sandboxes where you complete repetitive objectives through rewarding physics-based interaction. I’m not the type of person that enjoys playing video games to 100% completion, but it was impossible for me to put Mugsters down until I completed every objective of each level I played. Even though the game never asks you to do anything particularly compelling, Mugsters’ tight level design, vivid presentation, and freedom to tackle objectives however you see fit leads to exciting and rewarding moments of accomplishment.
Another Alien Invasion
Mugsters doesn’t make much of an effort to present its premise. In Mugsters, you are tasked with the responsibility of rescuing humans from aliens that have taken over planet earth. You can piece this together naturally by playing through the game (I’m sure it’ll click once you get abducted by a UFO in the later levels), but I found it a bit odd that it isn’t mentioned in some way at the beginning of the game itself.
Regardless, there isn’t anything particularly unique or mysterious about aliens invading a planet and enslaving its inhabitants. The premise is sound enough for the player to understand why they’re running around these islands saving humans and blowing up aliens but it’s not something that will leave a lasting impression. Instead, Mugsters uniqueness shines in its vivid cel-shaded presentation and compulsively addicting physics-based engine and level design.
Cel-Shaded Sights
The first thing that stood out to me when I first played Mugsters at E3 2018 was its striking appearance. Mugsters uses a mix of cel-shading and bold colors to achieve its stand-out presentation. The blends of yellow, red, and orange in the earlier levels of Mugsters are profoundly vivid and complementing of each other. Shadows from smoke clouds appear as flowing ink spills, while the shadows of mountains and hills are like contrasting silhouettes against the bright colors of the ground and sea. Pretty particle effects flash when walls and other materials explode as debris flies throughout the island. The art-style and presentation is delightful and gives the game a unique sense of character.
Sound design in the game is done quite nicely as car motors, explosions, and enemy movements are all characterized by punchy and impactful effects. Unfortunately, the soundtrack’s ambient and spacey tones don’t fit well with the fast-paced and explosive moments of Mugsters gameplay.
Mugsters performs at a mostly stable 30 frames per second with clean textures, sharp graphics, and sweet design touches like the postcard font stating “Island Passed” at the end of a level or the chromatic aberration-like effect when your character respawns.
Thinking Outside the Island-Sized Sandbox
Each level of Mugsters is made up of three objectives; interacting with extraterrestrial equipment, saving humans, and collecting crystals. Interacting with alien devices on the island is a relatively straightforward process like destroying satellites with an explosive barrel, activating ray collectors through the power of multiple laser-beam decked cars, or disabling core heaters by using the weight of items scattered throughout the island. Saving humans from their glass-based incubators is the most tedious of the three tasks due to their tendency for getting stuck on walls and the ease by which they die when you’re escorting them to safety. Crystals are hidden throughout the island behind gates, in trees, and on top of hills, but they’re easy to find thanks to the green hues of their glittery particle effects.
On their own, completing these objectives is repetitive and boring. There’s nothing inherently difficult about them, and the addition of enemies in the later levels prove to be more of a nuisance than a challenge. These enemies vary from foot soldiers that endlessly chase you until you punch them out to a large onion-shaped alien ship that stalks you around the island trying to abduct you by destroying everything it touches.
What makes Mugsters so exciting is the freedom to tackle these objectives in cleverly designed island sized sandboxes. Each island is littered with various types of fun vehicles, explosively exciting barrels, and interactive buttons and levers for activating gates. Islands are designed in ways so that you have the choice of solving puzzles and completing objectives in whichever order or direction you’d like. I would collect crystals while solving the main objective first, and I would only escort all the humans after eliminating all potential threats on the island. If the game forced me to take a specific path or to solve puzzles in a particular order every time, I would not have as much as I do when playing Mugsters.
Controlling your character in Mugsters feels excellent as they move with a certain weight and speed that makes the character feel realistic in its movements. Picking up and throwing items is also an exciting practice as the physics-based engine encourages natural movements and actions. There’s nothing more fun than jumping out of a speeding vehicle so that it crashes into a group of aliens, blowing them off the planet. The free-flowing movements of the characters and the tight physics-based engine are perfect for completing the time trial modes that are unlocked as a reward for completing all the objectives of a level. Trying to find the ideal path to shave off seconds before the time limit expires is an exciting and rewarding application of all the skills you learn throughout the game.
If you wish you could play in Mugsters’ explosive playgrounds with a friend, then Reinkout has you covered with an additional multiplayer mode. The freedom, mayhem, and chaos of Mugsters are further amplified in this mode as you and another friend are free to explore the island together or separately. The levels are changed a little to accommodate the additional player, making the separate save files for singleplayer and multiplayer understandable. Even though only the first player can control the direction of the camera, the game will zoom out the view far and wide to encompass both players even if they’re on to wildly separate places of the island. I played a few levels with my cousin, and it was always a (literal) blast when we would make insane decisions to see who could solve objectives quicker.
Viewing your progress in Mugsters is done from its uniquely interactive home island. At the bottom of the island is a small office space where you can customize your character with boots, a cape, and even a hat. To the left, you see collections of the humans you’re evacuating to safety saved sitting in roller coaster carts waiting to go through mysterious portals. The game rewards you with access to a car you can drive and mess around with on the home island everytime you evacuate a new row of rollercoasters.
On the right, is the interactive level selection area characterized by a mess of panels, cables, and machinery. The panels list the stage number and the objectives. The cable that runs from the panel changes color and flows directly to a board that shows total completion everytime you 100% a level. Even though you can beat a level without completing all objectives, you’re not given access to a certain number of levels until you achieve all the objectives of certain levels before that. For example, I 100% completed the first five levels, and this gave me access to levels 5-9. I only managed to finish the main objectives of each of these levels, meaning I never received access to level 10 until I completed all of the objectives of at least one of the 5-9 levels. While this technically means you have to complete all the objectives of each level to beat the game, I didn’t mind it because I enjoyed myself doing it.
Concerns
Most of my complaints with this game lie in the way the presentation of the game affects gameplay. For whatever reason, Mugsters refuses to let you change the camera so you can get a closer view of your character and its surroundings. Your character and the objects they can use are so tiny that it makes it irritating and straining to keep track of them. Additionally, the cel-shaded art style of the game is not defined or outlined well enough in some cases that sometimes structures like hills and mountains will blend into the shading making them hard to tell from the rest of the stage. When running away from UFOs or a group of aliens, I had a couple of times where I would hit a wall I didn’t know was there and get abducted or killed.
Final Thoughts
Mugsters brings together an engaging collection of island sized playgrounds for players to freely tackle goals, explode aliens, and save humans however they choose. An uninspired narrative, repetitive objectives, and a few presentation issues prevent the game from being great, but that doesn’t mean Mugsters is not a worthy title. From its eye-catching presentation to its addictive gameplay elements, Mugsters is a solid experience that rewards players for thinking outside the sandbox. Mugsters is available now on the Nintendo eShop for $14.99.
Review Copy Provided by Team17
