Review #782: Kong - The 8th Wonder of the World

 I wonder if any gorilla got hurt during the making of this game?

 While I know I even owned King Kong on VHS back when I was a little kid, I've never been too fond of the character, so even if Peter Jackson took a swing at the franchise hot on the heels of Lord of the Rings I just didn't care. Not that that would stop me from giving Kong: The 8th Wonder of the World a try! I'm not too sure of how I came about it, but I saw either a video or a screenshot of three playable characters on-screen at the same time and right then and there I knew that I had to play it.

 This game is a very brief adaptation of the movie by the same name, taking form of a puzzle/adventure game not unlike something like Zelda, but much, much worse. You're thrown into Kong's Island and must adventure threw the land following various objectives, at first, you only get Jack and Carl, who must rescue Anna from the villagers, and once that's done you get your full 3 member party. If you decide to explore instead of going from objective to objective, you might find a few collectibles that permanently upgrade your characters' lifebars, so there're rewards for going off the beaten path. Every now and then you'll get to play as the big banana itself, King Kong, but his short stages take the form of decent, but unremarkable, beat'em up sections.

 Each character has their own set of tools: Jack is the ONLY one that can attack, and he can do so with a Machete, a Rifle or by throwing javelins, the latter that can also be used to trigger levers from afar. Carl can push and pull certain objects, throw grenades(to crack rocks or defeat man-eating plants) and use a torch to light other torches. Anna... Anna follows gender tropes to a tee, being able to use a herb to heal the party, use another type of herb to heal villagers, use a hookshot or.... scream for Kong. Yes, one of her 'tools' is a scream. To add insult to injury, the couple of times you must summon Kong with her screams, you need to hide immediately before he arrives, lest he kidnaps Anna and you have to go fetch her again. Or, y'know, load your savefile before screaming. You can swap the character on the lead with the L button, or separate the party with select, as sometimes you might need someone to stay over a switch so that another character can go do something across a bridge or somethin'. Each character has their own health bar, and even the character you aren't playing as can get hurt if he or she touches an enemy, but its game over if anyone dies.

 At first the game seemed really amazing, the puzzles were fun, finding collectibles was rewarding and it even had a light crafting element! But.... it quickly went downhill after I cleared my first temple. The fun crafting element? Eventually became dumb, because Torches, Grenades, Hookshots and Javeling all run out, so you must keep crafting them, which means cutting down plants and pots every single time because your puzzle-solving tools actually run out. I mean, to be fair, the dungeons/temples are the game's high points, they are very, very fun. If the game was only made up of these it'd be an easy 8, but alas, we've also got to contend with the Island itself....

 So, why did the game go downhill after I cleared my first Temple? Because I realized the map is downright useless. You can check the map while traversing the menus(Start, then L button, then select) and it'll show an X on the area that you need to reach. Problem? The game doesn't tell you how areas connect, so even though the X is to the right of the area you are standing in, you might have to approach that X from above or below, it's a gamble to be honest. Some areas have like five different entrances/exits so you'll never know just how to reach whatever zone you want to reach. Maybe you didn't see an exit? Maybe I have to go below before and get to the area through another route? I don't know, the map won't tell me. The map is useless. All this needless meandering through the Island quickly sapped me of any and every enjoyment I was having. What's even worse, the jungles sometimes has endless enemy respawn nooks and crannies, nooks and crannies you need to walk through, so you might take damage because the enemy immediately spawned next to one of your characters.

 Man, Kong: The 8th Wonder of the World has been, easily, the worst disappointment I had this year. The game started off SO promising, and to be fair, every temple you visit is fun to figure out. Pushing rocks to cover air drafts so that you can carry a lit torch without it getting blown out, figuring out how to get from one point to the next, etc, etc is very fun, it's just that getting to those really good parts requires going through some awful, awful parts. Sadly, this game is a case of the bad vastly outweighing the good.
 4.0 out of 10