Beatbuddy : Tale of the Guardians Xbox One Review

Beatbuddy : Tale of the Guardians

Back in 2013, Threaks launched Beatbuddy on mobile devices to much critical acclaim. Now transferring over to console, how does a critically acclaimed 2 year old mobile game fair against today’s modern console counterparts ?

“there are two outstanding aspects of the game, the

visuals and the soundtrack”

I would normally start a review with a breakdown of the story of the game, but here, with Beatbuddy, i frankly am at a loss to explain why you are doing what you need to.  Something about Beatbuddy, needs to save his friends springs to mind, but frankly that is all I can remember !

Maybe I can’t remember the story because there are two outstanding aspects of the game, the visuals and the soundtrack. They are indeed very memorable!  Visually the game, as Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen would say is  “lush”.  6 levels of beautifully hand crafted worlds are realized with character, colour and vibrancy. It oozes class and production. Tiny aspects make it better with the little moments of Beatbuddy when he dances, the shaking of the machine he travels in, and the wobbles of the jelly like creatures.  It’s simply beautiful.

The other aspect, and probably the one where the game wins it’s awards, is the music, soundtrack, and it’s integration of this with the game.  How it works is the enemy types you face when you explore all have their own ” percussion ” sounds. One type beats a base drum sound as it pulses, a hermit crab scitters like a high hat, and so on with new enemy types with new percussion sounds.

What this means is that as more and more enemies appear there is a cacophony of musical beats/sounds, all in time, that layer upon each other for a fantastically addictive soundtrack base. Then some real life notable DJ’s fill in with their work at these points to pad out the music to full flow. So when the beat is flowing, the screen full of enemies, and you’re nodding your head in time to the game with the tune, whilst trying to solve the on screen puzzle you face at the same time, the game truly does come to life.

( As a side note, from the in game menu that takes you to an internet page, you can in fact purchase the games soundtrack separately for £7.99 )  

The gameplay was a huge let down though. It was wonderful to just explore, and discover hiding places of collectables, but for battles or fast moving timing sections, it required little skill to complete them. At various points you hop into a 2 man ball like machine, that has a gun and moves with beats. It adds a little variety to the normal movement of you being your little character, but again wasn’t very challenging.

The puzzles were the best part of gameplay. Nothing was really that difficult, but did require some thought. The normal idea of a puzzle was to fetch a part of a lock system from one place to another, to open a door to proceed.

I was hoping for an end of the level boss, but to be honest there wasn’t really anything like that to get excited about. One chapter just ended, and another had a really lame chase that i completed in my second go. It wasn’t exactly thrilling.

Other than that, and new enemy types you encounter as you progress, and various different types of puzzles that need timing or keys to solve, there wasn’t much else. Each level took around 45 minutes to complete, and with 6 levels the game could be cleared in around 4 hours.

“It promised much, but missed out where it really matters in a platformer, and that’s the challenge”