Game #1063: The Mummy Demastered

  Can't we at least have a playable Dark Universe? Pretty please?

  Wayforward is one of the most interesting Western developers, as I feel most of their work is pretty darn impressive considering they've mostly tackled modestly budgeted games. The Mummy Demastered is yet more proof as to why you should call these guys when you need a movie tie-in game.

 This game might as well be a sort of spiritual successor to their other licensed gun-toting metroidvania, Aliens: Infestation. You play as a faceless agent, one of possibly many, as you try to hunt down the Mummy before it lays havoc on earth. In Aliens the gimmick was that any of the of the unique marines could die, in this game, once you die that agent is dead, or rather, undead, so you play as the next guy in line and you must kill the previous agent in order to recover your upgrades. All of your upgrades: Your weapons, your health upgrades, the whole inventory.

 Since killing your previous agent is this game's gimmick they made the game harder than you'd expect. In all honestly, I only died once, to the second boss, but I had some close encounters here and there, and some bosses felt unnecessarily lengthy. I also feel some of the challenge is more annoying in nature, for instance, there's no quick way to heal yourself, so you'll have to enter-and-exit whatever room you feel has plenty of enemies or objects you can break to slowly refill your health bar. If you explore the game's world, and you should, you'll unlock new weapons you can carry that are much stronger than your assault rifle, although the have limited ammo, however, getting to any ammo-depot room will instantly refill your ammo. Would've been nice to have something similar for your health. Wasting time to refill your health isn't challenging, it's just boring. Speaking of challenging, considering how tough the previous bosses were, particularly the second one, the final boss in the game is just pathetic. Maybe the fact that I was carrying the best weapons, a ton of health upgrades and ammo capacity upgrades helped, but still... the final boss shouldn't be one of the easiest battles in the game!

 I also feel like they tried to make the game difficult by placing the player in annoying scenarios. Plenty of rooms have endlessly spawning enemies, so enemies might spawn RIGHT beneath you while you defeat other enemies. And by the end of the game, basic enemies can handle ridiculous amounts of damage, at least from the default assault rifle. Once again, as hard as they tried to make the game I only died once, but I feel like the challenge came from the game being cheap rather than fairly challenging the player.

 Still, healing issue aside, what really grinded my gears was how unhelpful the map was. Wayforward have made Metroidvanias before, they know how to make them. Here's the thing, the map graphics don't show openings. So you'd better remember if there was a door you couldn't break somewhere. You'd better remember how rooms connect together, because the map won't be of much help. 

 On the flipside, it's a fun game to play once you get used to shooting and rolling, as well as get used to the annoying enemy patterns and placement. As with any other Wayforward 2-D game, it's a visual delight, so it's always fun to come across new enemies or try out new weapons. It was also pretty fun testing the limits of how you could explore the game, as being creative enough with your running jumps can get you into areas you should be using the phase shift to get into!

 The Mummy Demastered is a decent little game, with a few design choices that veer a little into the annoying, but thankfully the core gameplay is pretty solid, as exploring the world of the Mummy is pretty fun, the rate at which you can acquire upgrades and weapons is slow enough to keep you interested in exploring more areas and the absolutely gorgeous sprites makes it so that finding new enemies is always a treat. Not Wayforward's best, but definitely a good one.

 7.0