Aside from punning on the word “well” I really struggled to think of a clever opening for this review of Animal Well. This two-dimensional, 8-bit inspired Metroidvania is so fantastic that it deserves to be spoken about in the straightest way possible. It’s without doubt the best platformer I’ve played this year, and it may even be my favourite Metroidvania ever!
With that said though, Animal Well has a bit of an issue — it’s too bloody hard. You’ll begin your time in Animal Well as a blob with no abilities apart from a basic — and really nicely weighted — jump. Within about half an hour, you’ll end up with a bubble wand thing that can be used to extend your jumping reach, but only if you have the hand speed of either Muhammad Ali or at least the average household cat.
Yes, within an hour at most of play, Animal Well has you doing the most ludicrous things. Set amongst the backdrop of largely dark, cavelike screens punctuated by bright, living things in the foreground (growing, living, walking and hunting as they may be) you’ll explore inch by painful inch.
So many of the nooks and crannies in Animal Well lead to new discoveries. Pass through the canopy that disguises the edge of the screen on the smallest of ledges and you might find a tiny crack in the scenery with nothing but a chest and a collectible egg — or you might find a switch that affects a platform on another section where progress had previously ground to a halt.
Other screens feature jumps of various lengths that must be timed carefully between giant stalks who fish at the water with their beaks. The panic that their random attacks cause adds pressure to jumps that are already on the verge of frustratingly hard. This, of course, is nothing compared to some of the bubble wand sections.
Some of these had me tearing my already thinning hair out — and many of these were early game before other features were added to my arsenal of skills. Imagine a section where you must blow a bubble, wait for it to rise, jump to it, blow another and jump to that, all whilst under threat? Does it sound like that might be annoying? It most definitely is.
However, Animal Well treads that intangible line between frustration and encouragement or rewards incredibly well. There are many games like Animal Well that I have ditched at the point where they became even half as frustrating or challenging as this — yet here I felt compelled to carry on.
Whilst it may not be familiar to all, I hope some of you will know what I mean when I say that Animal Well is up there with some of the very best games in the genre — feeling a lot like say Ori or Metroid Fusion in terms of how it pushes you right to the limit and then just gives you enough of a breather afterwards to make you feel ready for the next onslaught.
And so what else is there to say, really? If you like Metroidvania games then you will like Animal Well. If you like tough Metroidvania games and can deal with a level of challenge that far exceeds most modern games, then you might well love Animal Well. For me, this game is actually too hard — and many people won’t be able to finish it — but for those that really persevere, Animal Well is fantastic.
You can purchase Animal Well on Nintendo Switch, Xbox or PC.
