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Are We There Yet?

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Almost There is a simple little game developed by Bony Yousuf and published by The Quantum Astrophysicists Guild, but is it worth sinking the hours into?



Game Mechanics:
In Almost There, there is only a straight play mode which consists of three worlds with fifty levels apiece. There is no story, multiplayer, etc. Just a straight forward select a level and play. There is absolutely nothing wrong with Almost There being this way, it just would have helped the game to have another mode to allow players to mix it up to lessen the stress the game creates. Almost There is very difficult, and to achieve three stars on some of the levels just seems inhuman at times but they are indeed achievable. However, it might take hundreds of tries before the player can streamline their movements enough to perfect a level.

Almost There is addicting due to its difficulty and the wish to perfect it, but it is a very frustrating and stressful addiction. The only other thing to say about the content part of the game is that it feels like more of a mobile game for a phone. That isn’t a “bad” thing, it just feels a little lacking for a console game.



Technical Bits:

Visuals: The graphics are fine, but the level construction is a little rough around the edges. It is not immediately noticeable if one is totally engulfed in the gameplay. Plus, the character is simple but cool. It’s a little cube that has a red ribbon around it to where it kind of looks like a ninja cube. There is also a red trail left by the cube as it moves which is a nice little touch.

Audio: The audio is also ok. The sound effects fit, but the background music is an issue. There are only three different “songs” in the whole game and they only change from world to world. This means that in one world of 50 levels the player must listen to the same song over and over as they try to complete the world. And the song is only 10-second clip on loop. It is ok for a bit, but over time the background music gets annoying.

Controls: The controls are easy to pick up on after testing the buttons on the joy-cons, but there is a problem with them. If the player tries to use the analog stick for movement, the input for it cuts out sometimes. If the stick is pushed to the left, there is a chance that it will move the character left for a moment and then stop. This makes the analogs almost unusable and almost forces the player to use the d-pad for movement which is highly disappointing.

Completion: I am not going to give an estimation of completion time because this is a kind of game everyone would take at their own pace.



Bottom-Line: This game is rough around the edges with control issues and just being hard in general. It is probably not worth playing unless you're into this genre of games. We give Just There for the Nintendo Switch a bad to below average level of recommendation.

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Score: ★★★½☆☆☆☆☆☆ 3.5/10

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#Review #BonyYousuf #QuantumAstrophysicistsGuild  #Platformer #Physics #Switch #eShop #PS4 #PSN

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