Nintendo Switch – The Mummy Demastered #29

Wayforward making a “Mummy” game? This was unexpected…

The Mummy Demastered - First 30 Minutes Screenshot 2017-10-22 19-33-43

The Mummy Demastered – Nintendo Switch – Released: 10/24/17 – $19.99

Short Review (Review Copy provided by Wayforward)

WAIT FOR IT! It is very tempting to buy this game right away but it has framerate issues and can become impossible to beat if the wrong things happen at certain points. The main issue is the resurrect mechanic which I thought would be a great idea, you have to retrieve all your items and defeat a zombie version of yourself? Cool, right? I thought so until I got to around what I think is half way through the game. They don’t tell you that the resurrected zombie can use all your weapons that you died with and hold onto all health and ammo upgrades. Multiple resurrected zombies can exist as well, they do spawn in the spot you died but sometimes spawn in another room next to the room you died in. Do you see the issue? I have some footage of where exactly I am stuck and there really isn’t any spoilers outside of enemies you will have to defeat, this also shows the huge spikes in frame rate.

I consider myself pretty good at Metroidvania style games and it is one of my favorite genres but this is not what I thought it would be. The game outside of the massive issues is a great game so if you have a PS4 or Xbox One or PC, I would look into how performance is on those. The Switch version on the other hand is terrible and I can’t recommend anyone buying it until the frame rate issues are addressed. I love Wayforward too, I even backed Shantae: 1/2 Genie Hero on Kickstarter four years ago as an early adopter, so this was a hard pill to swallow since the opening hour is great with no issues. I had put the game down for a day or two to work on other reviews after I finished recording my first 35 minutes with the game. So returning to it after I was done those, was something I couldn’t wait to continue playing… an hour goes by, all good then two hours go by, I start to see some issues. Then the spikes started to happen and then I became stuck. I went back to other areas but those areas easily meant death if I got hit a few times and having the weakest weapon meant I did minimum damage to enemies. The brains that were attacking me in the video can be killed using another weapon in one shot. You can see how long it is taking me to kill them now.

UPDATE: Several hours later I was able to backtrack enough to find two health packs and a flamethrower. I was able to recover my items but the framerate is still a massive issue. The final boss comes down to a crawl that feels like you are playing the game in slow motion. I still recommend waiting on a patch to fix the framerate. The zombie resurrection can still be an issue if you try to blast through the game. Luckily that’s what I did and I took my time backtracking against enemies to find more secrets. Another issue did arise though. Many secrets are locked behind metal gates which require a certain item and that item can be lost to the Zombie resurrections. I will be updating my review with a video of the final boss for anyone that wants to see how bad the drops can be even when only a boss is in the room with you.

UPDATE 10/26/17: They are currently aware of the issues and I will be updating the review once the update is out!

UPDATE: 2/20/17: The game has gotten another big update and I have to say it was a long time waiting but it is a much better game today than it was before. It is still very short but more forgiving and I now highly recommend this game!

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Story

The game drops you off as an unknown Agent whose job it is to track down Ahmanet and kill her. You go into an area to look for fallen soldiers and find that she is feasting on humans to regain her strength. She escapes each time but will leave you a big boss to take down. The story isn’t anything to write home about but gives enough motive for the player to track her down.

Gameplay

Standard MetroidVania style game. You start off with certain weapons you will find health updates, ammo upgrades and new weapons. The only issue I found is that weapons are very mandatory to track down. Certain ones do a whole lot more damage than others and you will likely never want to use your base weapon ever again. The entire game is built with tracking down Ahmanet, she will summon a boss for you to defeat, defeat that boss and you will find a new upgrade nearby. These range from being able to grab the ceiling and move along it to being able to jump higher to diving underwater. The resurrect mechanic is an issue like I stated in the short review and it is something that will break the game if you let it. If you are mindful of how much health you have and track down upgrades all the time it. You likely won’t die and save often since when you die the game will auto save to prevent you from turning off the game and going back to a previous save before you died. That was my biggest issue, being stuck at I believe half way through the game with no options but to explore previous areas that are still pretty dangerous.

UPDATE: I was able to venture back enough to collect a few health, ammo upgrades and a weapon good enough to kill my zombies quickly. I was also able to finish the game but frame rate is still a big issue. During the last sections of the game it will slow down massively at time. This happens at the final boss as well resulting in some really questionable hits that would have been easily been dodged. I did message WayForward about an patch and still no answer so I will include that at the very top since that is the only thing holding this game back on Switch.

Personal Experience

I really really wanted this game to be great. It is made by Wayforward, one of my favorite companies that I’ve loved since Contra 4 on the DS. I own almost every physical copy game that they put out. I backed them on Kickstarter and even purchased 1/2 Hero Genie on the Switch after finding out that Wii U owners would not be able to upgrade to the Switch version due to not having a release date yet. It was hard to not think this game would be great and I know plenty other people were really excited to play this game on Switch. Either buy it on another console or wait for a patch to come, it is sad that they would even allow a game in this state to be released but hopefully they are quick enough to patch up the frame rate issues.

Final Thoughts

DO NOT BUY! I will give another review of it once the frame rate issue is fixed but currently I can’t recommend it since it will get sluggish at times even when you are just running from room to room. If you do plan on buying the game you have to be very mindful of things that take huge chunks of life in one shot. If you don’t pick up all the health upgrades which can be around 6-8 depending on what weapons you have picked up.

FINAL UPDATE: 5/30/18

I would give this game a 8 out of 10! It took a very long time to get to this point and the final boss is still glitchy.

My first 35 minute gameplay video: