The Mummy Demastered

Here I am with another in a line of solid but never quite amazing releases from Wayforward. They’ve certainly made amazing games before like Shantae and the Pirate's Curse but they tend to make a lot of okay games. In this case this turns a movie tie in game that should be bad into something that is good. Based on the recent Mummy movie this requires you to suit up as one of the secret agents that are trying to stop the mummy’s curse from being released. As generic agent #1 it does feel like the game wants you to note that this is a expendable force.

Yet it does fail from that perspective. Going by the fact the select screen has a death tally, dying a lot was apart of the plan. Yet I never died once. So I didn’t interact with the fact I had to go back to my body to reobtain all the upgrades I just lost. Not a huge lost but they did a better job of this with a previous game called Alien: Infestation. Which had unique characters that felt like you really did lose something when they died other than some powers. In some ways this is a sequel to that game since they are both shooters with a focus on exploring an area.

Even the weapons you get to use are similar with a arsenal of guns that must be found to be used.. Since the entire game is a sidescroller you can shoot in any of the 8 directions and stand in place if needed. Most enemies aren’t much of a threat if you use any of the obtainable weapons like the flamethrower. Other than the default they all have limited ammo but that was never a issue either except when fighting a boss. Could be a issue if you don't collect almost everything but that is kinda hard to do.

I haven’t bought up the key word Metroidvania yet but that is the type of game this is. Exploring a 2D environment that is connected together via passages that can only be used if the right relic is obtained. This part is pretty much by the books. Yo, do you want a higher jump or the ability to go in water? Then I’ve got the relics for you. Being able to blow up doors turned out to be the most useful of them all. Which means they missed out on making a more unique power up that could have made exploring more fun rather than it being predictable.

Yet I haven't brought up the best part of the game yet the aesthetics. Not everyone seems to like pixelated games games anymore but the SNES stylized look still looks great to me. All the different mummies and bugs that stand in your way look awesome. All of this is aided by a suburb synth soundtrack composed by monomer. I wanted to keep playing just to hear a different track in each level.

Looking over this review now I wasn’t quite as positive as I thought I would be. Still I think this game is alright. It may not try anything new but it does a good job of using what it has to make a fun game to play. Fairly short too at around 4 hours if you were worried about it taking a while to finish. I suggest you check it out if you need a little vania in your life during the age of way to many video games.