Funk of Titans (Wii U) Review

It's difficult to not blast Funk of Titans for having a story that is obscenely stupid, but considering the gaming world once praised a plumber eating mushrooms and jumping on turtles to rescue a princess, that would be a bit unfair. The story provides Funk of Titans with an excuse for the hero to do what he does, and it allowed A Crowd of Monsters to put a fair bit of style into their work, though they pulled their punches. Surprisingly for a game that focuses entirely on Funk, Funk of Titans forgets to bring any.

Through the bulk of the game, only two actions are necessary, and three of the four buttons are mapped to attack. The other allows Perseus to jump. That's all that the controller is set up to allow, because that is all that the player ever has to do: jump or attack. It's a "temple runner" kind of game, and Perseus begins running at the start of each stage, only stopping if his path is obstructed by a door or step. Doors must be broken down with a weapon, and some doors require particular weapons in order to break, but the majority of the doors go down in a single strike from any weapon. In addition, wall jumping will change the hero's direction, but, if he isn't supposed to go in the new direction, he will stop and turn around.

Beyond crashing into enemies, spikes, and fires, there aren't many ways to screw up, and that's either a strength or a weakness for Funk of Titans; it's really hard to determine which. On the one hand, Funk of Titans is really easy, made even easier by the fact that the player only ever has to do two things to proceed, and that makes it accessible. On the other, it is virtually impossible to lose. That's not to say that Perseus can't die, though; Perseus becomes naked after being stricken once, but he dies on the second. However, the levels tend to play themselves, aside from jumping and attacking, so there aren't many ways to screw up.

Collecting golden vinyl records is never difficult, because they form a trail of breadcrumbs through the entire level that make Funk of Titans still easier. The only things that really require any effort to find are the Pegasus heads, which usually don't require effort to find and which unlock the mini-game at the end of the stage. This mini-game is alright the first few times, but after that it becomes unbearable: the music is awful, the frame rate drops frequently, and there is even less to do in the mini-game than in the main game: here, the player has only to press "A" to fly higher, and release the button to fall.

The frame rate is the biggest problem in. While the stuttering usually isn't unbearable in the main stages, the hiccupping will be cause of death in the mini-game a solid eighty percent of the time. It's a good thing that the mini-game only rewards golden vinyl records (since they are both plentiful and unnecessary), because the mini-game is borderline broken, which is a strange thing for a game as graphically simple as this.

The golden vinyl records really are useless, except to unlock various costumes and weapons, none of which are interesting and all of which are needed only to collect more golden vinyl records. Functionally, all weapons are the same, except that some doors can only be opened by one particular weapon. However, since only a Pegasus head is ever beyond these doors, and since there's no joy to be had in the mini-game after the tenth play, the entire experience becomes circular. Funk of Titans also becomes tedious, because there is no way to skip the mini-game if the Pegasus head is acquired except to immediately crash and die, but since the loading time for the mini-game is strangely long, this doesn't save much time.

Not all of the costumes and weapons can be purchased from the beginning, either. A Crowd of Monsters gave Perseus a Hero Level, which increases by completing various tasks for Zeus, and the Hero Level determines what equipment may be purchased. Only rarely will these goals require actions that wouldn't be taken anyway; most will be accomplished automatically, such as the one that wants Perseus to jump twenty-five times. Again, though, Funk of Titans becomes circular: Perseus can't have the Traffic Sign weapon to unlock the door and get the Pegasus head in Stage Two-Three until he has done something arbitrary for Zeus that can only be done in the Rock world. If that sounds tedious, it's because it is. Games that force backtracking for random, inconsequential bonus items aren't entertaining, especially when those meaningless bonus items are used ultimately to get more of the irrelevant, unentertaining bonus items.