"Animal Well" Review

Publisher: BigMode

Developer: Billy Basso

Platforms: Nintendo Switch, Playstation 5 (Reviewed), Microsoft Windows

Let's go ahead and get the elephant in the room out of the way...or should I say, the donkey in the room. Animal Well is, as you probably well know, the very first game published by BigMode. For those living under a rock, BigMode is the brand new publishing company run by everyone's favorite nitpicking, biased, shoe-eating critic: Videogamedunkey. As such, this game comes with a bit of fame out of the gate, and there have been several sticks-in-the-mud turning up their noses and saying that the game is only getting the excellent reviews its been getting because of that Dunkey pedigree. And you know what I have to say to that idea? The people saying that are nitpicking and biased, I win, bye bye! The fact of the matter is that while the BigMode label has granted Animal Well an extra bit of exposure, I can say with certainty that its universally positive reception comes from its own strength as a game. 

So, let's get away from the publisher and get down to business! Animal Well is a passion project from solo developer Billy Basso, who created his own engine in order to run this game. In it, you play as a nondescript blob in a massive subterranean space inhabited by animals of all shapes, sizes, and biomes. When you wake up, you have no instructions and no sense of what you are or what your overall goal is. Your only clue is a series of markers on a map you're yet to fill out which lead to four flames that you need to retrieve.

Since that's basically all there is from a story standpoint, I might as well take this time to discuss (without spoilers) how deep this well goes. Obviously your objective is to find the flames, but this being basically a metroidvania, you can expect hundreds upon hundreds of secret passages and hidden secrets. Some of these secrets are new tools you can use for exploration that enhance the tools you gain organically through the critical path. But more often than not, if you're secret hunting, you'll likely be looking for one of the game's 64 individual eggs. These are the main collectibles, and I'm only at egg #46 despite spending several hours looking everywhere I can possibly think of. And that's before we get to other hidden secrets, such as musical cues, hidden animals, and an entire lengthy questline in an inhuman language that has to be deciphered. Make no mistake, dear reader, when you spend your money on Animal Well, you're getting far more than you think you're paying for.

Now, I mentioned that this is a metroidvania, but it isn't like any other metroidvania you've experienced. For one thing, there's no combat. There are enemies to avoid and other hazards, but none of the abilities you acquire to progress can be used to fight. But the major departure from the established formula is how the traversal abilities you might be used to take form. To give the most basic example, in any good metroidvania, you'll typically unlock a double jump at some point. However, in Animal Well, you get a bubble wand. When you use this wand, a bubble is created that gradually drifts upwards. In this way, you do get a double-jump, just one that you have a bit more agency with the placement of. Plus, if you're skilled, you can actually chain the bubble wand to scale incredible heights without falling. Many of the tools you unlock have even more use cases than this. For instance, my personal favorite tool is the "disc." It's essentially a frisbee that you throw at whatever height you happen to be at when you press the button. If it hits a wall or other object, it'll bounce off and head to the other side of the screen. If it happens to hit another wall or object, it'll once again bounce off. In situations like these, it'll continue to bounce back and forth at that height until you either jump up to intercept it or leave the current part of the map. So, obviously this can be used to hit switches or other things that are out of your reach, but there's so much more that can be done so long as you use your imagination. Other tools you get are more niche but can still be critical for making some puzzles easier. There's just so much you can unlock that gives you so many options for exploration and experimentation, and it truly seems like if you get an idea, you will be rewarded for it in some way. That is by far the most satisfying part of Animal Well: it makes you feel smart for finding a way to pull off what seems to be an impossible feat. And all of this is before you unlock the more than one tool that reveals previously unseen things, opening up new secrets for just about every area.

But for all the game does right, there's one misstep that I have to reduce the final score for...and given the fact that it appeared in all the promo material, I don't consider it a spoiler. There eventually comes a point where you have no choice but to start getting chased by a truly terrifying ghost cat. Your objective is to reach a room up and to the right by several areas to interact with a shrine, solving incredibly sensitive puzzles as you go along. And this is the only part of the game that truly feels unfair. The cat will chase you from frame-to-frame, and despite what you might think, this isn't really a race. It doesn't matter how fast you make it to the next panel, it will take the cat exactly as long to enter the frame regardless of whether you entered that frame a second before it caught you in the previous frame or a second after it entered the previous frame. What's more, it can elongate itself however much it wants, and the way it moves is erratic and unpredictable. In one particular frame, I was able to consistently execute a complex maneuver with the disk to avoid having to platform or deal with enemies, and the cat simply would elongate itself all the way to the far side of the frame to intercept me just as fast as if I failed that maneuver and had to do things the hard way. Eventually I learned that sticking closer to the cat some of the time was more beneficial, but there are also times where that's absolutely not the case. Everything I've said so far has mostly applied to the first 3/4 of the chase, but it's in the last quarter where things truly fall apart. This is when those puzzles come into play, and there's no real way to cheese them (that I know of). If you fail even remotely, there's very little chance of salvaging the run, and it's here where you're most likely to fail. This cat, to be 100% honest, beat Elden Ring's Fire Giant in terms of bosses that made me rage the most. So, there are undoubtedly some people who have found ways of cheesing this chase by this point, but I can only judge based on my experience, and I hated this part of an otherwise excellent game.

Last thing to discuss is the technical state, which is uniformly excellent at worst and truly revolutionary at best. As I mentioned at the start of the review, this game runs off an engine created specifically to run it, so of course it's going to run well, but the quality can't be understated. The pixel art is seeping with atmosphere and one-of-a-kind lighting, and the soundtrack repays those compliments in kind. There's no dips in framerate at all, no glitches of any kind, starting the game takes less than a second, and there's no loading of any kind to be found anywhere at all. But by far the most impressive technical aspect of this game is the smoke effects. It's impossible to describe, so go and look up the firecracker animation, for example!

Folks, you don't need me to tell you that Animal Well is a shoe-in for at least the top 5 spots in every GOTY list. You've heard it time and time again. So what are you waiting for? It costs significantly less than almost everything of quality released this year, it pays major dividends, it's like Halo 2 meets Halo 3, and I think it would be impossible for you to regret playing it.

Let us review:

Cat chase - 1.0

The final score for Animal Well is...

9.0/10 - Fantastic

Excellent work, Billy Basso, excellent work!