Paper Monsters: Recut

Developer: Mobot Studious, Inc
Steam Release: Oct 2014
Hours Played: 5.6
Similar To: Giana Sisters / Juju / Oozi: Earth Adventures / Tommy Tronic
Rating: 3/5 Parsnips

GAMEPLAY
Paper Monsters is a delightful platformer aimed at a younger audience but is fantastic for all ages. You control a square cardboard robot who's limited to left and right movement with a jump and a double jump thrown in. In some levels you may fire missiles and use a jet-pack. Your main focus is on exploration and jumping as you pick up buttons, paper clips and gift boxes around seven brightly coloured worlds. Buttons help you achieve a good score while there are three hidden paper clips per level to be found. A gift box rewards you with a heart (more on these later), a paper-clip or the one large button that you have to find per level. Apart from having to complete the four or five levels within each world, there are no conditions needed to progress further so ignoring all types of pick-up or loot is entirely possible.

BALANCE & PACE
Unsurprisingly, although the game is centred around jumping there is a multitude of enemies out to make life difficult. These range from monsters, birds, plants, bombs, snakes and dinosaurs. Apart from the few with spikes on their back these can usually be dispatched with a well-timed jump on the head but some levels do equip you with a basic gunfire attack. Overall I would say that the game is one of the most forgiving I have come across. Extra robots, indicated next to the cardboard character in the top left, are very easy to come by and each has a further three lives (indicated by hearts next to it). Lose all robots and the game simply starts you at the beginning of the level again with five (yes, five) robots intact. In spite of this the game is an absolute joy. Not only is this down to creamy smooth movement but it's all in the magnificent presentation. 

PRESENTATION & DESIGN
Hats off immediately to the guy in charge of lighting and shading effects as this really adds to the game's character big-time. A great feature is the way you teleport through pipes and get thrown from the background to the foreground and vice-versa but it's the whole way you move and appear in the background that is so well done. The seven environments and worlds themselves also have their own distinctive charm and theme tune which is also extremely well executed. In fact, I've always been a big fan of games that bother to include different theme tunes for different levels and this is evidence of how much extra care and effort a developer bothers to put into their game. Little touches like the way you do a little twist as you double-jump and the way pick-ups sparkle and gleam all add to what makes this game so fun to play.

PROGRESS SYSTEM
Again, Mobot Studious scores a slam-dunk here. To view your overall progress you bring up a menu while you roam around the huge level-select area with your robot. This menu shows a stat-screen of each world and features the four or five levels it contains. For each level it shows: (1) if you have found the big button; (2) paper-clips found and (3) your high-score. In addition it displays how many paper-clips and large buttons you have found in total. There are six main worlds altogether with five levels in each (Bad Guy Valley has four) and there is also a "secret" world containing six levels called the Super Sweet Overworld. As mentioned, worlds and levels are accessed by roaming around another (level-select) world with ledges, buttons and all sorts of surprising hidden extras. Oh, you'll find some half-decent mini-games as well.

CONCLUSION

Paper Monsters is a really impressive mobile to PC game that has not suffered one bit in making the transition. There is so much to unearth and to discover just in the level-select area alone. My one nit-pick is that there is no direct and immediate route to replay levels. To do this you actually have to trundle and travel quite a fair distance with your robot to reach the sign and to activate the level. Still, overall, although its main focus is performing well-timed jumps rather than in solving puzzles, it is without a doubt one of the most accessible games to use when introducing a 6-10 year-old to the wonderful world of the platform puzzler. No, it's not a young-person's thinking-man's puzzler (get the original Toki Tori or Professor Fizzwhizzle for that) and it won't stretch the brain but yes it is mighty fun!