Save me Mr. Tako (Nintendo Switch) Review

The original Game Boy shaped portable gaming as the world knows it today. The little grey brick was underpowered, yet affordably priced, and with a vast library of games that ran a wide gamut. It was one of the most successful pieces of hardware ever to come out of Japan along with the Sony Walkman. Naturally, it would leave an impression on many fertile young minds who would grow up playing 2D platformers like Kirby's Dream Land, Kid Dracula or any of the Mario Land games since they were so accessible. With Save me Mr. Tako, the designers opted to not just homage the restrictive visual palette, but also the simplistic nature of Game Boy games from the late '80s and early '90s.

The charm of the Game Boy two-tone visuals wears thin pretty fast. It may be cute at first, but as the game goes on it becomes visually exhausting to look at. It would seem even the game's designer would agree since there is even a feature where users can cycle through a wide variety of colour palettes with the shoulder buttons that would not be possible on a Game Boy. Some of these are visually interesting since some of the palettes are lurid and intense, but not something anyone would want to play with extensively.

The default pea soup green seemed like something that would be used for story-telling purposes since the first area is Mr. Tako under the sea, and using old Game Boy graphics could be a way of giving the impression that he lives in a murky and dull world. Having the rest of the game in full colour as Mr. Tako leaves for the surface would have been a brilliant concept since the game's story deals with prejudices between octopus and man. Beauty can only be skin deep, though. What matters is substance - and, sadly, this is very shallow.

The developer's ambition of creating a game that is as complex and as deep as an original Game Boy game is fully realized. This is as basic as a 2D platformer can be, and has very little going on to make it memorable. Much of the ability hats of Mr. Tako do not amount for much, and he loses them when he gets hit once. This becomes an exhausting ordeal when the difficulty spikes midway through the game where homing enemies are introduced that can and will set Mr. Tako back.

Save me Mr. Tako brings back the old lives system that is not seen too often outside of a few games like Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze or New Super Mario Bros. This would not be much of an issue except for the fact that Mr. Tako's lives max out at a measly nine. He is supposed to be an octopus, not a cat, and as the difficulty goes from leisurely to sweating bullets, expect to have to farm lives in the easier stages - all because Mr. Tako can't rack up lives past a single digit.

This is as plain-Jane of a 2D platformer as can be. Being an octopus really does not make much of a difference since Mr. Tako plays no different than someone like the original Mega Man. Shooting ink is not lethal - it merely stuns threats and turns them into temporary platforms to reach areas. Wearing hats tweak the gameplay in minor ways, but since it is so easy to lose them it is not uncommon to ever get much use out of the headwear. For those who really want an authentic Game Boy style game, Save me Mr. Tako will surely deliver... warts and all. This is not like Shovel Knight, which made necessary changes to the style of games it homages, leading to the betterment of the experience.