Nobody Saves The World, the latest game from Drinkbox Studios, is a wonderful little RPG bursting with character, color, and innovative gameplay. Its charming characters and vibrant environments are a delight to experience as the titular character, Nobody, smashes their way through hordes of horrific baddies.
There's a lot to love about Nobody Saves The World, and it does a remarkable job of upending the RPG formula in some fun and exciting ways. But while Nobody Saves The World might be a great game overall, it's not without a few flaws that hold it back from being a truly exceptional, RPG experience.
9 Loved: Combat Variety
Nobody Saves The World's combat has a surprising amount of depth, especially as players progress through the game. The gameplay revolves around the main character's ability to transform into a variety of different forms, each with its own powers and abilities. They all approach combat differently, whether by attacking with a bow from a distance, or summoning an army of vicious rabbits to rip enemies apart.
And if that isn't enough, at a certain point in the game, players unlock the ability to customize each character with different passive buffs and attacks from other forms they've unlocked. Players can give the Necromancer an army of different familiar types, or have the Dragon spray both fire and water if they so choose.
8 Didn't Love: Difficulty Spikes
Early on in Nobody Saves The World, it can be a bit daunting to figure out where to go first. With only a few forms for players to choose from at this early stage, much of the game's map is blocked off either by environmental obstacles or incredibly challenging enemies that will destroy the player in a single hit.
These difficulty spikes can be frustrating when first starting out, as it feels like the punishment for not devoting time to the specific quests necessary to reach the appropriate level. These jumps in difficulty even out once more quests are available and the map opens up, but it still sours the experience in the game's first few hours.
7 Loved: Gorgeous Environments
Nobody Saves The World is a visually stunning game and stands alongside some of the most beautiful indie games ever made. The character models are fairly simple and suit the game's cheeky vibe, but it's the background environments where the game really pops.
There are vibrant colors everywhere, from the dreary swamps of Damptonia to the dense jungles surrounding Stonefish Village. And that's nothing compared to the absolutely jaw-dropping designs of the optional demi-dungeons like Dead Dragon or Belly of the Whale.
6 Didn't Love: Repetitive Music
While Nobody Saves The World's score isn't really a bad soundtrack, it does wear itself out pretty quickly. It doesn't quite hit the same after hearing the same loop of notes for the hundredth time, and the same base theme repeats throughout every region of the game's remarkably diverse world.
It would have been nice to have some more varied musical arrangements to accompany these different biomes, especially when each one is so visually different from the last. While there are definitely subtle distinctions between each area's music, they all have an uncomfortable tendency to blend together.
5 Loved: Quirky Characters
The characters in Nobody Saves The World are an absolute hoot, and each one of them is given just the right amount of time to shine without overstaying their welcome. Octavia the Witch and Danielle the Mummy are two standouts who are somehow hilarious and profound at the same time, even if Danielle is unintelligible under all that wrapping.
But the real star of Nobody Saves The World is Randy the Rad, the protégé of Nostramagus the Wizard and a really arrogant jerk. Randy is a fascinating character who ends up having the most profound character arc of anyone in the game. By the game's end, he's become his own man and a true hero.
4 Didn't Love: Story Lulls
Nobody Saves The World has an exceptional gameplay loop that keeps the player in a constant state of discovery and increasing power. This comes at a price, though: extended lulls in the game's story. All the optional dungeons and side quests create huge gaps between major story beats, and it feels like Nobody Saves The World loses its own thread as a result.
It's not a unique problem to this game, but it suffers for it nonetheless. There are multiple points where players can find themselves unable to progress the main story for hours at a time, and this uneven pacing dulls the significance of the narrative.
3 Loved: Gameplay Loop
The gameplay loop in Nobody Saves The World is probably its strongest quality, as it never stops feeling great. There's something exhilarating about the constant progression from completing quest after quest and raising that level up just a little higher. It gets even more fun with the added wrinkle that each form has its own quests and levels to pursue.
Completing Form Quests and ranking up with each form not only unlocks more attacks, perks, and upgrades for that form, but it also brings the player one step closer to unlocking a new form. It's a well-balanced system that is constantly rewarding gamers for playing creatively and with style.
2 Didn't Love: Laborious Main Dungeons
With this top-notch gameplay loop, it's a sham, that while inside any of the game's main dungeons, players are unable to make any progress on the quests for any of their forms. While on some level it does make sense that these dungeons should function as a skill check of sorts, blocking progression in this way makes the dungeons feel closer to tedious chores.
The added sting is that many Form Quests have specific objectives that can only be found in dungeons, so players might meet the necessary criteria without any reward.
1 Loved: Fun Challenges
Nobody Saves The World has a staggering amount of combat variety, allowing players to mix and match abilities on the fly to handle almost any enemy the game throws their way. With so much variety, though, it can be easy for players to feel overpowered after unlocking and upgrading the entire arsenal.
Drinkbox Studios thought of this, though, and they've stuffed the game with a plethora of compelling challenges and intricate scenarios that never feel stale. Every dungeon has strange parameters that force players to change the way they play, and New Game+ remixes these modifiers even further for some absolutely wild encounters.