What is it?
Nobody Saves The World (NSTW) is a top down action RPG with metroidvania and rogue-lite elements made by Drinkbox Studio’s, the creators of Guacamelee. The primary gimmick of the game is that you begin the game as literally “nobody” and quickly find a magic wand that allows you to transform into a variety of creatures and beings ranging from a tiny rat to a buff body builder and each form you unlock has unique passives, quirks and attacks. The final twist is that each form has extra attack and passive slots, you can mix and match the skills from all the forms together to make wacky and powerful combinations.
Story & Characters:
The game has a fun but overall quite a cookie cutter story with one small exception which I won’t spoil. The story does its job in shuttling you along your journey however the characters are a different story, each of them are quirky and funny and some are even going to stick in my memory long after playing.
Difficulty & Replayability:
The games difficulty is an interesting topic, some of the dungeons and challenges are quite difficult but in general the majority of the game is quite a walk in the park, now don’t get me wrong, it is a beautiful, enjoyable walk in the park but a walk in the park all the same.
In terms of replayability I would say it very much depends on how you played the game initially, if you are like me and wanted to S rank each and every form and play with the combinations before fighting the final boss then there is very little to do on subsequent play-throughs however if you play through quite quickly and didn't play with each form as much as you wanted then there is quite a bit in the way of content. Furthermore there is a new game+ mode that scales all the dungeons to your level and adds additional challenging modifiers if you are looking for that.
What I loved:
The art design draws you in immediately it is very endearing, quirky, funny and enjoyable to look at.
The soundtrack is absolutely chock full of banging tunes that suck you in and makes every minute more enjoyable.
The main hook of the game, the forms, are an ingenious addition and make it so that all the way to the end of the game there is always something new and cool to look forward to. Also as someone who loves putting together builds the way the forms passive and active skills all work together is a joy to play and experiment with.
The quest design for the forms as well as throughout the game itself is an ingenious dopamine treadmill that is hard to hop off of.
What could be improved:
As I mentioned earlier the story is a bit cookie cutter.
The other main thing I feel can be improved is difficulty, a great example is later in the game there is a dungeon that locks you to your specific form and abilities, I think this is great mechanic that should have applied to most dungeons to force you to think through your strategy in advance to walking through the door.
Another idea I think should have been expanded on (minor spoiler here) is there is a dungeon that multiplied all damage taken and dealt by x9999 this was a fun challenge that made you think of how you could survive and get through such an extreme challenge. It would have been great if there were more dungeons that pushed the way you put together form builds to conquer extreme challenges like this but this is the only dungeon like this.
Final Thoughts:
Overall I thought that Nobody Saves the World was a beautiful, fun game and the form system is ingenious, that paired with the quirky world and memorable characters made for a great experience that I could happily recommend to anyone not looking for something that is too difficult or challenging.