How Mutant Mudds joins the ranks of great eShop titles: A Review

I'm going to start with a bold statement indeed: Mutant Mudds could not have been accomplished properly on any non-3D platform. There, I said it. It really is wondrous to behold in sweet 3D. You may have already guessed by now that I'm starting this review by going over Mutant Mudds' presentation. As you can hopefully see from the image on this post, Mutant Mudds presents an old-school, pixely graphical style. It just happens to work like a charm, especially with the 3D turned on. The added depth of 3D actually adds to and places even more emphasis on the 2D glory of the thing. In short, these graphics are colorful, appropriate, and not overdone. Lovely!

The gameplay in Mutant Mudds is equally impressive. As I mentioned in my first impressions post, you the player will take control of a young boy with a small set of skills: these are thankfully limited to jumping, hovering for a limited time, and firing what I imagine to be a pretty intense squirt gun in 40 levels of platforming action. This simplicity is reminiscent of video games past, when controllers themselves were limited. It is a refreshing approach in a gaming world in which 10+ button functions need to be memorized in order to play anything.

Level design in Mutant Mudds is pretty stinkin' good, but I think it could have been better. I mentioned above that the 3D effect in this game really lends itself to the 2D graphics, but now I would like to rave over the use of 3D in the levels themselves. Our intrepid hero can utilize special jump pads that actually propel him into different layers of 3D depth. This is undoubtedly the coolest use of 3D I've yet encountered. That's the "pretty stinkin' good" part of Mutant Mudds' level design. What I meant by "could have been better" is that there isn't a lot of variation within the levels. Also, I really lament the lack of checkpoints in the levels as well. Checkpoints would have lessened the pain of dying many, many times over in one level (which began to feel like the blow of a blunt blade after a while) while still keeping the challenge intact.

So it might not be the best game for the easily-frustrated (like me, I regret to say), but Mutant Mudds has earned a place amongst the best the Nintendo eShop has to offer. Are you planning on picking this one up?