Slime-San Review(PC)

GameNChick

Dec 30, 20175 min read

Updated: Feb 21, 2018

Its cute,its fun,its Slime-San!

Slime-San is action adventure platformer developed by Fabraz games and published by HeadUp games. In this game you play as a little Slime with your goal being to jump,dash and climb your way to the end of each level to your own freedom.

The game starts with you,Slime-San, getting eaten by a giant worm. Yes,you're reading this correctly. You get eaten by a giant worm and you spend the game trying to escape from the depths of its endless stomach.

Gameplay:

Stages in this game require you to jump past obstacles and climb walls to get to the end of the level. This is easier said than done because the further you progress through levels,you will have to utilize various skills such as time freeze,wall jumping and air dashes to be able to completely bypass hazardous terrain.

The stages are separated and categorized into four levels. Each level you make it to, the challenge becomes that much harder. Now from a stage design point of view, the levels with the way they look, do not offer much variety and may get a bit tedious to look at because they tend to look the same visually. However, each level is different individually, such as enemy and prop placement with each level having alternate routes to take in order to get to the end goal of the level,if you're creative enough.

Now don't go thinking its all just platforming and jumping,oh no. What really makes this game fun to play is when the levels themselves start getting creative and becoming almost maze and puzzle like. By the time you get used to jumping and hopping here and there, the developers decide to switch it up and make you climb down narrow paths,fall down ledges and have to act quick to use the freeze time ability in order to become transparent to fit through a narrow space before hitting a red wall and dying instantly. It can get pretty intense,especially if you keep dying a lot on a spot you know for sure you can beat.

Controls:

The controls in this game will differ depending on which route you want to go in. I played this game with both an Xbox 360 controller and a keyboard. I'll just say this right now, do NOT use an xbox 360 controller or gamepad,stick to a keyboard,you will thank me later. Playing with an xbox 360 controller caused all my jumping actions to delay and lag anywhere from a half second to a full one second and made the game nearly unplayable. However with a keyboard,the controls were buttery smooth and I never experienced an issue after switching back to the keyboard.

Graphics:

The visuals and graphics in this game are very bland or rather they're just so so. Nothing really sets the world on fire with what they did here,but that's where the charm of it can actually come through. You're in a cute pixel world with bare basics graphics, but it works out at certain times because of the gameplay mechanics used, such as time stopping. When using the time stop ability in this game,your character turns into an clear looking transparent piece of slime with a white outline and with the color scheme and level design chosen in this game,it makes the effect of the skill and its animation stand out a lot more,which makes it feel unique.

Length/Other:

For a game all about getting to the end of the level and platforming your way around, you would think that its a very short game thats only a few hours long like a lot of other games from the same genre. But surprisingly this game lasts anywhere from 10-12hrs just with the main story alone, if thats all you choose to do. Of course the time played in this game also depends on the individual players skill, so time played between every player will differ from each other.

If you want to venture off during the main story or after the main story,you're free to do this too by visiting a town inside the giant worm. Yes,once again I have to tell you, you heard me right, there's a freaking town inside this giant worm,I mean what the heck?. In this town you'll find various NPC's to interact with and talk to and even purchase things from if you can find the proper vendor.

The currency used in this game in order to buy accessories from vendors is apples. You find these apples in each level of the game,but they're pretty difficult to get so you'll have to work pretty hard to get them all. You can use your currency to get accessories that improve Slime-San's personal skills or trade in one skill or trait for another,such as sacrifice speed for higher jumping or get more dashes into your movements. But apples aren't the only currency, you can also collect coins that can be used in the arcade to unlock other mini games to keep you entertained and add further length to your play session.

Replayability:

If collecting all the apples and coins for mini games and new characters do not tickle your fancy and you've already beaten the main story,well then there's still more to do. After doing the previous listed things, you still have boss rush,speed running or even what seemed to me like a new game plus mode that changes the level layout and seemingly got a lot harder. Any one of these can add an extra hour or two to your overall play session and could keep you coming back for more.

Final thoughts:

Slime-San ultimately is a fun game with quite a lot to do,however,while there is a lot to do,the game itself can get quite tedious. Playing for hours on end you will feel that you're just ''going through the motions'' and sometimes just zone out because of the art style chosen for the game(as stated its both good and bad). The music also tends to throw me personally out of the mix and at times makes me lose my concentration,while this might not be an issue for all players,but me specifically,it happened several times. I also had a few instances of a frame rate drop during the later levels,nothing major but it was noticeable.

So while it seems like I'm being a bit hard on it, I want to be truthful from my own time with the game. Its a fun and charming game and offers some good replayability with a good main story length,but ultimately I had some issues with it. Normally I would say ''Buy'' but for this one I'm going to have to say ''Wait'' on it for a sale on STEAM. Currently as of this writing its $12 on Steam store. I'd say a sweet spot for a purchase lies in the realm of $5-$8. I couldn't argue with that price and neither should you.