Box Boy! Review

After delivering the truly wonderful Kirby and the Rainbow Paintbrush, HAL Laboratory must have been completely sick of action based platform games and excess colour as Box Boy! is the opposite of everything that Kirby is while still a truly brilliant game that delivers in almost every way possible.

You play Qbby, a boy who is a box… THUS THE NAME! Ahem, you have to progress over a series of 2D based puzzles that involve you spawning boxes out of your character similar to a… box machine… in order to make various shapes to progress over gaps and work your way up various ledges. It all sounds very simple but it has a lot of charm to its various elements. This is a game more about planning out your path rather than just merely doing it as fast as possible.

It all appears very simple at first, you can’t jump very high as boxes simply aren’t known for their skyward trajectory skills, not to mention that they are also very slow at moving from left to right in typical platforming fashion, with your box creation skills you create pathways to your destination or a bizarre limb to drag yourself skyward like some sort of grappling hooked based shape, it was in high school maths I swear! New techniques and skills are introduced as you go along that allow you to progress in a more elegant and unique fashion.

It is not a case of merely getting from A to B as you also have the added challenges of completing the levels in a certain amount of cubes used while collecting additional scattered crowns for extra points to spend on various new costumes and soundtracks. It is with that that there is nothing more awesome that decking out Qbby sunglasses and backwards cap 80’s style, it is rad, awesome and whatever other 80’s slang you care to throw at it.

Level progress is fairly rapid as it is rare to become stuck on any one level or single situation and this is the area that the game falls down slightly in as the challenges are never overly hard as new techniques are taught and then promptly forgotten in future levels – meaning that there is never a real push to use an extensive combination of your skills.

The aesthetics are truly wonderful even though the entire affair is similar to the Game Boy mono tone style; everything moves smoothly and has a lot of character in all its elements despite its minimal style. Qbby has a lot of charm even though there is no emotion to be conveyed, it is odd but it works. It is very memorable and unique in its overall look which is something that is rare to see in most game nowadays especially with such a limited palette to work with. To support this is a simple yet charming soundtrack to tie it all together, while it isn’t the most memorable but it does not detract from the overall experience at any time.

The main issue is that you are constantly in a mode of learning new skills rather than implementing them in unique new ways; there simply isn’t a big push to let player explore and make mistakes. This is not a major issue as it keeps the progress moving rapidly but it does mean that experimentation is somewhat limited other than maximising your efficiency at getting to the end. As a whole this is the only complaint that I have encountered as everything else is the usual HAL Labs quality.

If you aren’t interested in having a perfect finish to this game, you will be done in a few hours but the time spent with this title is well worth the cost of entry. This is a throw back to a style of gaming that was much more prominent in the 90’s and it is great to see that titles of this calibre can still be produced; it is not perfect but it will please almost anybody that decided to give this little box a home in their heart.

Even Euclid would be astounded what this piece of geometry can do and so should you. This one is highly recommended.