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By Al  Players: 1 Platforms: Nintendo Switch, XBox, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, PC Worldless is a 2D action platformer that adds in elements from other genres as well. Mixed in the platformer formula is Metroidvania-style progression and a turn-based combat system. It's part platformer, part RPG, part exploration adventure, and so much more. It's also a visually impressive game that I knew I would have to try out even though I was confused as to what kind of game it was. It's currently available on consoles and PC, and we're going to see if this unique blend of genres come together to create a game that you're going to want to add to your collection. Enough with the intro though, let's uncover this shapeless world and try to make sense of everything we find.
There is a story in Worldless, but I don't think I understand it enough to explain it. It opens with several stars colliding, worlds being formed, and battles ensuing between beings both big and small. You play as one of these figures created from the madness taking place in space, though you are relatively small, humanoid, and made up of light. Your existence is still numbered in minutes when you find another figure that the universe has decided will be your nemesis. This adversarial figure looks very similar to you, but is darker and moves in ways different from you. Your first encounter with this other figure goes awry, but you're saved by a tall being that speaks mainly in riddles. These beings (or is it just one that moves around?) mention "failures" and other cosmic beings referred to as "those above". These tall beings also try to influence your next actions, but you're going to go after your dark counterpart no matter what. The cat and mouse game with your rival takes many twists and turns, but once you catch up with them things flip completely. This story is told very lightly, mainly through imagery and silent action, and is very much open to interpretation. It's up to each player to piece together what's actually going on, or to ignore it all and just take the game at face value. We'll touch a bit more on story later, but keep in mind that you may very well play the game and come to a completely different reckoning to what is going on plot-wise. That's fine though, and feel free to let me know your own interpretations below. Exploration is the name of the game in Worldless, and you have quite a lot of ground to cover. Most zones are noted by a shift in background color, and most feature their own unique set of platforming challenges. Some areas are mostly submersed in water, others have you use various devices to get from one zone to another, and some have winds that you have to stop in order to keep yourself from being blown away. Most of these hazards mean death to the player, but you respawn quickly with no penalty for dying. There's also the standard video game level zones here such as a red fiery zone and a snowy white zone. You can eventually cut between these areas by opening up doors that bring you to a hub area of sorts (think the Star Zone in Super Mario World), though more traditional shortcuts like unlocked doors can help speed up travel later on in the game. There is an in-game map to help show you where you need to go, with an arrow pointing to you and a flashing dot indicating your next objective. This isn't the most helpful map though as it only shows straight lines and not the actual terrain you're travelling in. This makes it so that they'll be a lot of guessing going on, and rather than a Super Metroid-esque map, you have more vague visual instructions like "go left and hope you get lucky" to guide you. It's not all platforming though, as you'll eventually unlock skills like dashing, a double jump, the ability to run across water, and more that help you speed up travelling, and allow you to enter new areas. Much of the early game plays out in this Metroidvania style, though things do change up a bit later on.
Saying the world of Worldless is big is an understatement. Maybe it's smaller than I think, but the confusing map and wide open areas make it feel near impossible to fully explore at times. Scattered throughout the world are gems to collect, souls of other cosmic beings to absorb, and enemies to fight. We'll cover the fighting in a bit, but it's the others that help power up your character. I am not fully sure on what all the things you collect actually do since it actually took a while for me to notice the changes the first few times. There also is little in the way of a tutorial beyond just giving you the visual cues as to what you're to do. That said, most of these pick-ups do things like increase your life bar or give you orbs you can use in your skill trees. You have two full skill trees that each have several paths that are dedicated to various types of attack or defense. Orbs you get from fallen enemies (either lying around or defeated by you) can be used to power up attacks, unlock new combos, add bonuses for completing certain moves, or even to help with the timing for things like perfect blocks and parries. Orbs also comes in two different colors and are meant for either physical or magical related skills and attacks. I'm not sure if you can eventually power up you character fully, but considering that there are lots of enemies I only defeated but didn't absorb, I'm willing to be that you can. This system does lead to some interesting builds early on as you can focus more on magic attacks if you find some of the timings with physical ones too difficult to deal with. The problem is that the combat system will eventually require you use all forms of attacks at one point or another, this means that you're all but forced to level up everything evenly so you don't fall behind.
Combat in Worldless takes place in turn-based fashion, and is similar to what you'd find in an RPG, but with several real-time elements. Battle starts as soon as you enter an area with an enemy, and there is no way to run once battle has been engaged. I'm not sure what determines who gets to attack first, but on your turn you're able to attack until your action meter is depleted. You can attack physically, both close and long range, and with magic of various types. Enemies will be more susceptible to one form of attack or another, and an icon will show you which attacks will raise their absorption meter. On the enemies turn you can defend with either a physical shield or a magical one. If you do nothing at all you'll take full damage for any attacks that take place. Enemies will telegraph their attacks right before they make them with bars that flash across the screen and indicate that it's time to block. Timing of your blocks is important as you're meant to only perform the block at the last possible second to both keep your shield intact, and to raise that ever-important absorption meter. (Don't worry I'll explain absorption soon.) Just like your actions, enemy attacks can also be physical or magical, and they can even link attacks of different types together. A shield of the incorrect type can possibly still block an attack, but you run the risk of your shield breaking or draining a lot of progress in the absorption meter. If you die you'll be knocked back a screen and can simply redo the battle if you so desire. It's sometimes best to fail a battle or two so you can learn the enemy attack patterns so you can get the best possible victory. Victory in battle comes in two forms: death or absorption. If you kill an enemy, that's it, they're no longer an obstacle and you can move on. If you absorb an enemy you get an orb you can use in your skill trees. These are very important since you'll really want to power up your skills as early as possible. This means that the only true victory is when you absorb the enemy before it dies. Also, some enemies can't be killed by attacks alone anyway and MUST be absorbed. In order to get that absorption meter up, you have to string together attacks that correspond with the icons next to the meter. You get a big bonus if you break an enemy's shield, but you also lose a lot of the meter if you take damage or perform blocks of the wrong type. Once the meter hits a pre-determined point, you hit the shoulder buttons to begin the actual absorption. This brings up button prompts that have to be pressed in order to successfully absorb the enemy. Only some of the buttons are actually revealed, and you'll have to figure out the others by luck or trial and error since this is a timed minigame. If you fail you have to do it again, but there's no penalty in failure besides that. Once an enemy is defeated one way or another, they become an icon that you can interact with if you ever want to fight them again. This is important if you failed to absorb them the first time around, but it can also be used to practice against enemies of the same type. There are no truly random battles in Worldless, and you're only going to face so many enemies in each playthrough. This makes each battle feel like an event, and I must admit that the game system is quite fun, even though it can be very frustrating at times. Similar to RPGs, you can also tell when you're on the wrong path when you face an enemy that absolutely destroys you in a single turn.
Talking about the final goal in Worldless is very difficult. Like I originally wanted to talk more about the story, or at least discuss what it is you're doing all this for, but I can't find the words to say what I want to say. Part of this is because that I'm not even sure I understand what's going on here even after completing the game. I have a lot of unanswered questions, and I admittedly left some side content uncompleted. I guess I can say that the core story revolves around fighting large God-like creatures (there's even a dragon!) that are probably the "those above" that the tall figures mention. This comes after chasing down your darker rival, but it's best to not reveal anything else about that for fear of spoiling some of the game's twists and turns. While you don't spend the whole game chasing them, this part of the game brought back memories of Metroid Fusion on the GBA. A great comparison to make for sure. For the first quarter or so of the game you'll be chasing down this other figure, sometimes fighting and sometimes being driven away by them. It added a cool touch to the loose narrative to have a clear enemy in sight, something which isn't as strong by the end of the game. While the story takes a big shift after you confront them, this is also where the world really opens and becomes more like Breath of The Wild than Symphony of The Night. That's right, while it doesn't exactly go all in, it does sort of shift to a more open world format from there. I don't think I've ever played a game that played with gaming conventions in quite this way, but it all somehow works together.
I'm finding it hard to talk about the graphics of Worldless as they are clearly the best part of the game, but finding ways to explain why I think this is the case is difficult. I know this is going to sound kind of silly, but Worldless is the answer to the question "Can video games be art?" It's the most beautiful game I've played in a long while, and it's something that can't really be related through pictures or videos. You just have to get your hands on it and play to see what I mean. Now, I don't want to imply that this game has the most cutting edge graphics, or that it's slowly melting your computer by pushing your graphics card to the limit, but it just looks so damn good at all times. The colors, the locale, the fights and characters that appear off in the distance, the attention to detail is just breathtaking. Then there's the animation. When you fight, run, or do any action, the animation is incredibly smooth. The same goes for enemies too. This is movie-quality animation in a video game, and it runs throughout the entire game. There is literally nothing I can think to point out as a negative here. Even small things like the lighting and the many camera pans and zooms are all perfectly executed. I guess I could point out that there are the slightest hints of slowdown when you're using the quick travel portals between areas if you're playing on the Nintendo Switch, but everything else runs so smooth on the console that it feels like I'm being nitpicky by mentioning it. The world of Worldless is big, empty, and full of areas that are made up of a single grouping of colors, but somehow the only word I can think to describe the game is "gorgeous". I'm sure that others might not rave about the visuals as much as I am, but I'm also sure that even the harshest of critics will have to admit that this is an amazing looking game.
Have you ever really loved something but felt that it doesn't belong where it is? That's the way I feel about the music in Worldless. The soundtrack is moody, atmospheric, and more than a little unnerving. It's the perfect soundtrack for a far more thrilling game, perhaps an old-school survival horror title. The way the music swells and crescendos in some of the big encounters reminded me of when a monster pops up in a horror movie, or when a boss appears in a game of the same genre. It doesn't really fit in with the world as we know it here. Looking at footage and screens of Worldless and you'd probably think the soundtrack would be otherworldly, and maybe composed with electronic instruments and the like. Instead you get a soundtrack that sounds like it belongs to a completely different game. Now I don't want to imply that the music is bad, it is anything but. I actually really enjoyed the music to the point that I looked up the soundtrack so I could hear some of the tracks that play a bit too lightly in the game itself. It's just that it doesn't sound right for this game. I guess I could just be wrong and maybe the developers were going for a spookier vibe, but I don't think that's the case. I don't know what else to say about the music, but it's rare that I love something so much but also feel like it's totally wrong for something. Since we're on the topic of sound, I want to talk about voice acting a bit. Considering how little sound, dialogue, or even explanation is here, it might sound weird that I'm saying that the game could've benefitted from voice acting. A spoken intro, maybe one as esoteric as the dialogue of the tall figures would've really set the stage. Speaking of those tall figures, they're the only characters that have several lines of dialogue, and having them speak it would've been awesome. Maybe not even in English, but in a language that doesn't really exist. It feels like a missed opportunity, but also doesn't detract at all from the game as it is. More of a suggestion, but I really wish the game had voice acting. See? I can think up a negative or two if I really try!
I actually didn't think I'd cover controls separately in this review because I felt that they were a little too good. Like I felt I could say everything I wanted to say in the sections where I described the gameplay, but decided to save it for here. There are a few things to point out that I found noteworthy, and they mostly have to do with combat. Before we cover the negatives, I want to say that this is one of the best platformers I've ever played. You have so much control over everything, and there wasn't a single time I died where I didn't feel that it was my own fault. Even combat is good for the most part, but the perfect block system definitely tried my patience more than once. The timing for blocking a move can be so precise that I had to redo even some of the simplest battles many times until I mastered it. Enemies do telegraph their attacks, but you have to know which shield to put up, as well as time it for each of their attacks one at a time. Making things more complicated, most enemies alternate between magic and physical attacks, and screwing this up can cost you lives, or progress in the absorption meter. Speaking of that, the button combos that you have to press to finish the absorption is the most annoying thing about combat. I get that some of the buttons are hidden, and I get that there is a timing to pressing the buttons. What I don't get is why this is the one part of the game that never feels responsive. Mashing buttons brings the timing window to a close quickly, but it's also the only way I've been able to get the game to read my inputs. More often than not I'll fail and have to go through another round or two of combat before I get to try again. This is extremely annoying, and something you have to do a lot in the game. I got used to both of the things I mentioned by the end, but the imprecise nature of parrying and absorption make it so that I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to take on the near impossible optional bosses.
Worldless is quite the interesting game. I definitely give it a full recommendation for fans of Metroidvanias, action platformers, or even people looking for unique gaming experiences. The thing is though, I have to admit that this is definitely not a game for everyone. I more than enjoyed my time with it, and I plan to play it beyond this review in the hopes of completing all the side content, but the amount of times I wished the game wasn't so.... weird were too many to count. If you're someone who likes your gaming experiences to be straightforward and simple, then you might want to skip this one. There is something to be said of a game being a bit too experimental and unique for its own good, and this game definitely walks that line. If all that is no concern to you though, then grab this right now on your platform of choice. It's $19.99 price tag is definitely worth it, and if you have any cool interpretations as to what is actually going on in this game be sure to let me know in the comments. I'm not really the type of person to string together plot theories, but I'd love to hear from others who are. Until then, get exploring! For More Information on Worldless: https://playworldless.com/en_US/ Story: B (Depending on interpretation.) Gameplay: B Graphics: A+ Music/Sound: B+ Value: B Overall: B+ Pros: + One of the most visually impressive games I've seen in a long while. + A story that feels very deep and is open wide to different interpretations. + Mixes tight platforming and turn-based combat in a way that I didn't think was possible. + While not exactly an energetic soundtrack, the atmospheric music adds to the mystery of the world. + Lots of secrets to find and discover, as well as optional areas and boss fights. Cons: - Navigating the world can be extremely confusing due to the large open world, and confusing in-game map. - Random difficulty spikes can be very off-putting early on. - Since the story is mainly told without words, it can lead to a bit of an empty feeling if you're not willing to fill in the holes yourself. - Comes off a bit too "artsy" and non-standard for its own good at times. A copy of this game was provided to us free-of-charge by the publisher for the purpose of this review. This did not affect our review in any way.  Why you gotta call me that? #Wordless_Tonight
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