Super Panda Adventures

Developer: BlueEagle Productions
Steam Release: Jul 2014
Hours Played: 2.9
Similar To: Cave Story+ / DLC Quest / Monster Sanctuary / Pharoah Rebirth+
Rating: 2/5 Parsnips

GAMEPLAY
Super Panda Adventures is a retro-style action-platformer done in the Metroidvania style. Taking control of a small panda named Fu, you move around in fairly swift fashion as you leap, slash and fire your way through the dozen or so areas which you'll revisit a number of times. You begin with the bare necessities of a small sword that does miniscule damage and a single jump. As you scurry around bumping into new NPCs, quests are conferred upon you; the completion of which wins you additional powers and perks that allow you to traverse the landscapes ever further. Areas are sufficiently colourful as are the varied enemies who all have different moves and attack patterns and who, likewise, require different strategies to take down. Potions to restore health as well as XP in the form of stars are sprinkled in throughout your adventure.

BALANCE & PACE
Smiley green blobs might be met with a few swishes of the sword, missile totting lunatics need a more cautious approach, metallic monsters might need a mixture of a ranged and melee attack, while other enemies whizz annoyingly around your head and need to be dispatched with a timely thrust. Early on, you'll be given a boomerang-style weapon of your own and later, at the cost of mana, powerful blue missiles. Movement is very tight and jumps click nicely into place giving the player a solid feeling of being in control. Leveling up and extra abilities such as the grappling hook allows previously inaccessible areas to become available. Save points are liberally sprinkled around the landscapes (particularly at the start of areas) while exiting an area will take you directly to the map or area-select screen.  
 

PRESENTATION & DESIGN
This is a flat, 2D world constructed with a simple tile-set and fairly basic squidgy sound-files. The different areas come with clearly defined colour-schemes such as the green of the forestry areas, the yellow of the desert and the shocking pink of Cherry Tree Mountain. Within the game rather than having individual screens for skills, upgrades, inventory and quest log and the like, SPA makes do with just the one to cover the whole shebang. This admittedly makes things more streamlined and less fiddly in one sense but is still a pain to navigate through with an Xbox controller. Nevertheless, the all-round movement of Fu the panda and the overall feel of the game is responsive and sharp. My only negatives are that settings need to be done in an incongruous box outside the game and that there doesn't seem to be an option to turn the music off!
 

PROGRESS SYSTEM
You begin the game locked in your home town of Bamboo Village. After a certain disaster strikes, while you're visiting the princess, you'll be able to exit this area and enter the area-select screen or map where you'll be able to visit other unlocked areas. Coloured square symbols are areas that can be entered while greyed-out ones remain locked. As well as progressing by area you also add quests to your log; add points to your perks as you level up; orbs can be added to weapons and armour to upgrade them and items and relics can also be collected. On top of all that, there is a progress bar indicating how far into the game you have got.  
 

CONCLUSION

By now, we should expect that any game made with a child-friendly art-style is not necessarily going to be a child-friendly game. SPA is actually a creation that should appeal to anyone who appreciates solid, traditional game mechanics and who doesn't mind their hacking and slashing mixed in with a bit of back-tracking and exploration.  You'll collect different coloured keys in each area to unlock the corresponding areas and there is an indicator that displays this. Add the fact that areas are quite compact and that quests all have clear objectives in mind, and you'll unlikely ever feel totally lost. This is Metroidvania style gameplay done very well.