Nobody Saves the World Review

In 2014, Drinkbox Studios released a funny action platformer called Guacamelee that quickly gained praise from critics and gamers alike. It was followed by an equally hilarious sequel in 2018, and fans are eager to see what the developer has to offer next. Taking a break from platformers, Drinkbox’s latest creation Nobody Saves the World is a dungeon crawling RPG that delivers some of the humor players have come to expect and brings back a slight re-skin of long-established classic RPG tropes . When most people think of an RPG, certain elements immediately come to mind such as magic, armor, swords, goblins, and of course a fantasy setting. An RPG that breaks away from this standard formula automatically feels innovative and, in the case of Nobody Saves the World, this is quite true. But despite the general impression that the game eschews dusty RPG tropes, it’s not a universal variation. Even the title Nobody Saves the World announces that the game is in fact based on one of the most pervasive and overused themes in RPGs. Players begin the game as a meaningless nobody — no name, no memory, and no clothes. But somehow this ghostly pale amnesiac gets hold of a magic wand and is about to work on a checklist of quests. His goal? To save the world, of course. A growing dark force called Calamity has returned to destroy the land. The superstar magicians who would normally be called upon for help are gone, and for some reason, Nobody is the sole backup plan. That’s all. The story of Nobody Saves the World seems like a cookie-cutter outline slapped together because it was necessary. No one can stay empty forever, though. Thanks to the magical wand that he borrowed without permission, the hero of the game gains the ability to form into all kinds of useful creatures. And therein lies the selling point of Nobody Saves the World. Different characters, or forms, have strengths, weaknesses, and unique abilities. The slug leaves a trail of slime that slows enemies, the turtle retreats into its shell and slams into enemies to knock them back, and the ranger uses poison arrows to deal debilitating damage to passage of time. Discovering these abilities and learning to juggle them as needed is part of the fun, and each character’s abilities intuitively complement the others. The rat gnaws at enemies to gain mana, then spends that mana to consume enemies, dealing massive damage and restoring its health. The ability that slows enemies at the same time gives the snail acceleration, allowing it to zip and shoot tears from its eyes from a safe distance. At first, it seems that the large selection of characters can be limiting, forcing players to use forms they don’t like just to gain access to a useful skill or two. But once a skill is unlocked, it can be used in any form, and it opens up interesting ways for mixing, matching, and character building to suit individual play styles. Unfortunately, the number of unlockable characters is negative for another reason. In Nobody Saves the World, experience is gained exclusively by completing quests and not by killing monsters. But most of the quests in the game are repetitive and not fun busy work. For each new skill each character learns, the player must complete a series of monotonous tasks. For example, the game will ask the player to kill 100 enemies with the turtle’s water spray, then kill 200, and then kill three enemies at once 25 times. The pattern repeats with most attacks in the game. But it is more than that. Since characters can use each other’s abilities, there are also quests to defeat enemies using other characters’ abilities. It gets redundant very quickly, and there’s no attempt to hide how recycled the quests are. Unapologetically, there are at least three quests that can be completed repeatedly. Of course, the game also offers more ordinary quests like getting a potion to cure a curse, rescuing a knight from a dungeon, or collecting chocolate for a witch, and these provide a welcome and sometimes entertaining break from the monotony. This iteration even extends to items that can be purchased from vendors. With the exception of a few bonus skills, all that is sold are different levels of the same six items. There are physical attack and defense upgrades, magical attack and defense upgrades, and a constantly renewing supply of dungeon keys and skill upgrade tokens. This makes a key element of RPGs, collecting money by defeating enemies, slightly unsatisfying because it’s only used to buy the same things over and over again. The dungeons in Nobody Saves the World are procedurally generated. This probably means that every excursion into the deep should feel at least a little like embarking on a new adventure, but that’s not the case. Playing through the same dungeon more than once or twice — which is necessary to complete quests, level up, and unlock characters — starts to get the same very quickly. The variations introduced by procedural generation don’t change the dungeons enough, and each playthrough feels like every other. The encounters are the same, the general layout is the same, and the ending is the same. In fact, all the dungeons are completed in a similar fashion, making it very easy to identify and eliminate the sense of discovery in the finales. The various dungeons, on the other hand, are enough to keep people moving forward. Players will explore a witch’s candy house, climb a tower of atonement, investigate a UFO, and venture into the belly of a whale. Entering a new dungeon for the first time is always a bit exciting, like unwrapping a present, and many of the dungeons have special parameters that add to the challenge. In the Witch Queen Catacombs, for example, restorative items heal the player and enemies. Enemies inside the whale dungeon have rocket retaliation, and the Big Gnarly dungeon has a terrifying proviso of “All Damage x9999.” Another strength of Nobody Saves the World, the graphics, cannot be overlooked. The glossy, colorful, and detailed art style is very appealing and adds personality to the game. The presentation is light and cheerful and, like the dungeons, the world environments are varied enough to make exploration rewarding. Overall, Nobody Saves the World can be exceptional, but there are certain aspects that are lacking. The expected Drinkbox Studios humor isn’t enough to keep people playing to see what happens next, the story is negligible and seems like something thrown in to give players a half-hearted sense of purpose, and the -repetitive quests get tiresome very quickly. The positives of the game – the attractive art style, various skills and dungeons, and perhaps multiplayer – may not be enough to keep players interested. That being said, the gameplay and presentation of Nobody Saves the World will undoubtedly win over a lot of people, and it can hold the attention of others for a solid chunk of time. Nobody Save the World is available on PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. Today Technology was given an Xbox code for this review. MORE: 10 Best Co-Op Games of 2021