It was exciting when Nintendo announced that developers would be able to use familiar web frameworks to bring their games to the Wii U without licensing expensive engines or writing their own from scratch. The promise of the Wii U becoming a hub for more simple but engaging games was high. This didn’t really go anywhere though, and it seems that the Nintendo Web Framework has populated the eShop with more of the mediocre than anything else. Super Robo Mouse doesn’t do much to reverse this trend.
In Super Robo Mouse, you control a small robotic mouse. This mouse is tasked with collecting pieces of ‘Titanium cheese’ placed around a series of mazes before making a run for the exit. Seems simple enough. In addition to navigating mazes, you as the mouse must avoid the obstacles strewn about the place which mainly consist of moving saw blades, and small projectile shooting guns. There’s not much more to it really, just you, a maze, some hazards and a bunch of cheese.
As simple as the premise sounds, actually completing levels is rather difficult. You can tell that the game was designed to follow in the footsteps of pixel perfect challenge platformers like Super Meat Boy. Your attempt at a level is over the moment your mouse as much as scrapes a projectile or razor blade, and it will happen a whole lot. Rather than demanding mastery of control and timing like Meat Boy though, Robo Mouse is more demanding on your patience. When I wanted to be successful I found myself sitting and waiting for safe passage past moving obstacles. It didn’t make for a great experience, and made it all the more grating when I had to restart an entire level because I was hit by a projectile from off screen. As levels progress the mazes become longer and more complex, requiring you to collect more pieces of cheese before the exit. More complex levels mean more waiting around for obstacles to pass, and more chance that you’ll spend a bunch of time exploring around only to find a dead end. The lack of any kind of overhead map really saps enjoyment from exploration, it would be nice if you could know whether it’s worth bothering to explore a path before committing to it.
The game’s use of the GamePad is as basic as it comes. Aside from lacking an overhead map which feels like an obvious omission, what you do get feels like the bare minimum. While in menus you use the touch screen to select a level. While in a level the touch screen shows a counter with how many pieces of cheese are left. That’s it. The basic presentation extends to the main screen as well with the environments lacking in any real variety. There are four separate worlds to explore, but each of them feels like a palette swap of the first. Enemies all follow the same patterns and mazes just get more complex without introducing new mechanics beyond forcing you to survive for a longer time before exiting. Audio continues the bare minimum trend with a looping musical track being the only accompaniment to the exploration tedium. There are no sound effects whatsoever, no visual or aural feedback upon touching a trap, collecting an item or to hint at what’s nearby. Between the lack of audio and bland environments, I found the game a shallow experience.
For such a simple premise I wish I could say that Super Robo Mouse was well executed. Instead it’s something you’d expect from an average Flash game to play when the teacher isn’t looking during class. A lack of visual polish, interesting level design or really any mechanical development beyond ‘move and don’t touch bad things’ make it hard to stay interested in the game for more than a few minutes. We encountered some bugs too. When loading a new level occasionally the game would start to chug, dropping frames and becoming unresponsive until quitting and re-loading the level.
