Skellboy (Switch) Review

Skellboy caught my attention several months ago in the fall of 2019. We received some confirmation that these folks were interested in being a guest on The Forever Classic Podcast and we were really excited to see a game that Fabraz, the Developers of Slime-San, have helped publish. When we got in contact with Sabaku, CSG, and Bjoern we found that these folks were really passionate about their creation. We had a lot of fun talking to them, touching on where the game’s development began as well as what they were planning for release and beyond. I played the launch version of Skellboy which came with several bugs and interesting glitches that I will drill down on as we go but know that many performance problems were ironed out in the first patch. Along with it being the launch version I also played using both Joy-Cons (mine personally have the Joy-Con drift issue) and a Pro Controller. Without further ado, here is my review of Skellboy on Nintendo Switch.

Skellboy is a fun action-adventure that takes players through the Cuboid kingdom. You wake up as a skeleton and venture to find out what is happening. As you play, you are mistaken for royalty, feared and admired, and often help to rescue the kingdom’s most valiant knights. Skellboy is laid out similarly to Dark Souls of all things as far as how you traverse the map with its large, sprawling areas that are continuous. Souls design also carries into the combat of Skellboy with its tough enemies to overcome with the toolset you have. Lastly, new areas are steadily unlocked by completing puzzles and besting bosses.

Skellboy has this great approach to RPG equipment that does everything from changing one’s health points to adding armor that cannot be regained through health items to various perks and abilities that can also have set bonuses. Throughout the adventures, players are constantly mixing and matching to meet the challenge at hand. Brave heroes can even give themselves a handy cap or set up neat tricks to overcome tricky bosses.

The Dark Souls connection continues in the measured combat, even if it is a much simpler execution of those design philosophies. Attacks have particular wind-up animations and carefully watching enemy timing is key to survival.

Moving around feels a lot like you are moving on an advanced grid because of the 2D-made-3D Paper Mario style look of the game. The art style makes it feel like a more retro-style game. You also have the addition of a vertical space in which to fight with as well. From ghosts to birds to bats, you will have to utilize your jumps to be able to dispatch enemies who are above you which makes Skellboy’s action feel unique.

Don’t let the cute nature of Skellboy fool you! There’s a lot of complexity to how one outfits their hero and the order foes should be taken down for the highest chance of survival. Many body parts have specific functions like adding flight that are used to find secrets and progress. One early example of this involves the hero’s disdain of water, in which he sinks like a stone. To overcome this, you need to use a pair of feet that allows the hero to float. These instances are like mini puzzles.

During podcast discussions, Alex brought up the concept of puzzle box level design, which Skellboy seems to utilize well. This sort of design is most examined in the first Resident Evil and some Legend of Zelda dungeons have these elements. Basically, players have to peel away at layers of a large area by grabbing certain items to unlock other areas which in turn usually leads to more keys. It’s the type of level design that makes a space feel more considered and rewards players for being clever.

At launch, Skellboy suffered from a few hiccups that caused me some trouble. Sometimes, my character would get stuck in random places but this wasn’t enough to be anger-inducing as the game saves often enough. In a speedrun though, this issue could be a much bigger problem. I also ran into areas where I got stuck in corners that turned out to be a bug and a bit of a feature. Using a corner, sticking to the wall, and jumping continuously players are able to reach higher areas that can allow for skipping certain segments. This saved some time in some spots and was pretty fun to find provided the maneuver didn’t trigger getting stuck in general. I was also able to get outside of the map in the sewer level twice and I eventually had to fall to my doom to restart the puzzle. This also spawned a second king NPC that would follow me around, which was weird when standing next to the actual king.

There are a few other gameplay bugs that I found such as getting stuck on swinging axes, bats angrily circling the player without attacking, and instant killing the first boss with a certain item. There was also some misplaced text here and there.

Thankfully, with the advent of modern gaming, getting a game does not mean that it will forever be in that singular form. Patches and updates are an amazing thing because they can overcome issues and things that were missed in quality control. They can even add new experiences, levels, characters, and more. Yet, sometimes a particular version of a game is desirable and leaves open a reason to archive every release but that debate can be discussed in a future essay or podcast. For Skellboy, the devs were aware of the issues we ran into and they had a patch out just days before launch.

Unfortunately, content uploaded for the eShop has to be verified by Nintendo which can take some time. Launch players likely ran into poor performance and bugs but the bulk of those problems have been fixed by the latest patch. Part of me hopes they left the circling bats though; it gave our undead warrior a cool entourage!

Visually, Skellboy is super cute and brings back memories to be like a great wave. It has this bright, crisp pixel art that oozes style. Like previously mentioned there’s an air of Paper Mario here by having 2D sprites be modeled into 3D pieces. Each character and object are given depth for a stylish effect. Showing off this style is a dynamic camera that moves with you with fluid swings and always catching the action and the world from good angles. It makes for perfect flow and carefully measured exploration of a world filled with fun things to discover and secrets to solve.

The puzzles in Skellboy are hidden in plain sight. For instance, you may have to shoot some things down to help create a bridge to cross or pillars to jump across. Fair note, if your Joy-Cons have the drift issue these jumps can be hard. There are a lot of fun little puzzles to tackle as you go through the game and even some fights are more like puzzles. Keep your eyes open for anything and everything.

Playing into environmental puzzles are ones that can be solved or made easier through the various body parts that make up the hero. There are three distinct part slots: Head, Body, and Feet. Players can mix and match out of various sets and each part has a particular function or alteration. This creates a multitude of options when fighting and most players will start remembering their favorite loadouts and where those pieces can be found. For weaponry, players can carry one of each type: a Sword, a Club, a Spear, a Wand, and an Axe. There are instances where one has to leave pieces behind but they stay on the map provided one doesn’t leave for a new area. This makes it so having to pick something for function isn’t so painful because it can be picked up again.

There are also cosmetic items such as a cool wig, a pretty dress, funny hats, and armor that go over the Body item. This allows for players to be just the skeleton their heart desires. Alternatively, players can get silly with their build for lots of replay and laughs.

One of my favorite parts of Skellboy is the game’s sound design. Skellboy has a wonderful soundtrack that kept me pumped for each new zone. Each new song matches the tone of the area well and the melodies remind me of classic whimsical dungeon crawlers and RPGs. When talking to the game’s composer, Bjoern, he was going for something Banjo-Kazooie-ish and this is what resulted from that mindset.

The soundtrack easily gets stuck in my head and it sticks even more because each song is a variation of the same melody. Using this style of music, Bjoern is able to keep the player entrenched in the game world, unable to break out of the fantasy.

Other sounds in the game come with clear indicators. You know when your feet hit the ground, you know when you take damage, and you know when you have killed an enemy all by the unique sounds of those actions. Sometimes these sounds can layer and clash, typically during large fights where the player is striking enemies with quick blows. Each swing has a good effect but when a sound cue is lost it can confuse the player about how many successful hits have been landed.

I’ve played a lot of PVP games that require a lot of attention to footfalls and other sounds to locate foes. On top of this because of editing the Forever Classic Podcast, I am more aware of subtle differences in sound. So for me, this inconsistency in sound effects while playing Skellboy made some fights harder to gauge. That being said, most players won’t have this issue since they likely wouldn’t hear the difference anyway but it all depends on playstyle and how one chooses to tackle this Cute Souls game.

Controls in Skellboy are very simple. You can swing your weapon, jump, change body parts, use special effects of a body part, pause, move directions, or pick up/drop items. Since Skellboy doesn’t have an “inventory” you only have what is on your body, literally. Our undead knight can carry one off-hand item such as a key but the item management is deliberate and tight in scope. Unfortunately, this means we can’t double up on a favorite sword but maybe that will come in an update.

With the simple controls, you are able to utilize a simple toolset of moves to solve problems. Some puzzles and challenges are tricky so having simple controls really helps keep you at the top of your game while staying focused on the main task. Sometimes you may wish for some extra abilities or moves, but this is a kind of fun challenge to be able to tackle what the world of the Cuboid Kingdom throws at you over the course of the plotline. There are some situations I ran into that I felt really silly for because I was overthinking what I should do when the solution was right in my face.

Issues with the controls were nearly non-existent for me. I had some trouble getting the timing of the equipment and gear when fighting. I wished a few times for things to react faster, but that was a problem for me, not the game. My main trouble came from my Joy-Con drift issues. This game becomes super-tough as you near the end, especially if the Joy-Con keeps wandering off into one direction or another when you don’t want to. I finally opened up my Pro Controller after I banged my head against the wall for a while and was super pleased with how fluid things felt. Once I had the Pro Controller, things flowed tremendously better and really showed off the smooth feeling you get from running around a 3D plane in a 2D world.

Yep, the controls were smooth like butter. I’m sure there is a deep voice line out there somewhere to emphasize this. . .

So would I replay Skellboy after finishing the adventure? Totally! With the 40 body parts, you can mix and match, it makes each playthrough of Skellboy a new kind of adventure. Although, the adventure can be finished fairly quickly, especially for skilled players just looking to complete the story. Doing could result in missing some of the coolest extras though, so I recommend taking your time.

I replayed through several sections of the game in my first play-through because I wasn’t sure if I was missing secrets or not. I wanted to get to 100%, but I fell a little short; I was missing like 3 armor pieces and some other odds and ends that I do not want to spoil here. Each time I went back into a zone, I had a different setup with my armor so I got to check out a lot of different ways to do battle. It was absolutely fun. There is a challenge mode too if one wears only zombie body parts, resulting in way less health. Be warned though, several attacks become an instant death.

I greatly enjoyed my time with Skellboy, as well as the excellent discussion we had with Sabaku, Bjoern, and CGS on The Forever Classic Podcast. They are a wonderful dev team and Skellboy is quite the achievement for their first commercial game. I’m extremely happy for them and their future in the gaming dev world. I also believe that Skellboy really is a great game to come onto the scene with. It sets the bar high and lets others know that they came into the market with fun and passion.

Finally a special thanks to Umaiki Games, Sabaku, Bjoern, CGS, and Fabraz for the wonderful time! *insert cheering and some party poppers*

A digital Nintendo Switch copy was provided to us for review, content creation, and podcast discussion from Fabraz and Umaiki Games. Zach and Alex both played through Skellboy and Zach has nearly a 100% completion of the game currently.

This review was done on the Launch Version of Skellboy. By the time this review is out, it would have been patched one or two times, making this experience even tighter than when played.

SCORES

GAMEPLAY - 8.5/10

VISUALS - 8.5/10

SOUND - 9/10

CONTROLS - 8/10

REPLAY VALUE - 9.5/10

OVERALL - 8.7/10