FeeSoeeD

The Creators Collection is an initiative from MS that offers games produced and distributed by developers through Xbox Live Creators Program. You can find many interesting titles from small studios from all around the world. Today we take a look at FeeSoeeD, a 2D platformer from the Russian studio BUG Studio. BUG has a long list of games already published for PCs and Mobile (with some titles also available for Xbox One through the program) and now brings one more to our beloved console. 

THE GOOD

• The music is very good! So enjoyable that you won’t even notice there’s only one track during all your gameplay (sorry for the spoiler).

MIXED FEELINGS

• The gameplay in FeeSoeeD oscillates between challenging and punitive. It’s challenging because, most of the times, you need to explore all the level to find the key or the door that leads to the next stage. But the design, enemies and platforms only make the journey more tiresome. But let’s talk more about it later.
• Although the game has a good quality music, the same cannot be said about the sound effects. They will barely go unnoticed.
• I love games with pixel graphics. I really do, but graphics in FeeSoeeD are awkwardly simple. BUG Studio has already released some games with beautiful 2D graphics – pixelated or not (my favorites are Survival Time, Foxy Land, CosmoLands, Freelancer Tycoon, Etaria, REED, Stoneback and MontaSayer, most of them available for Xbox One), making this title feel like a great step back for them. Your character, the enemies, the scenario all feel very unsophisticated. The brown-colored scenarios, level after level, will get you bored of its art style pretty instantly. But I need to be fair and mention that the falling dust gives a nice atmosphere for the game.

THE BAD

• The menus of the game are really bad. It’s inexplicably and incomprehensibly hard to navigate through it. The UI during gameplay is also problematic: energy indicators are ugly
• In some levels, there’s a switch that turns the screen upside down. The controls become confuse, but it’s no big deal. The big deal happens in certain levels where you have many of these switches, one after another, making your screen spin like in a carousel. It gave me and another person who was playing along with me some serious headache.
• The mobile and PC versions of FeeSooeD have multiplayer modes (coop and arena), but these modes aren’t available in the Xbox version of the game.
• Most players won’t really care about it, but I miss a story in this game. Who is our character? What is this place we are exploring? What is he looking for? These are some questions that may not bother you during your gameplay, but I keep asking them every time I play any game and, so far, I couldn’t find any answers or tips about it.
• The gameplay is very punitive. Being a Dark Souls and Cuphead fan, it shouldn’t matter to me, but since the game becomes punitive in the wrong way, I can’t help but complain about it. Whenever you miss a jump in platform, you fall in a blue acid (I presumed It was water) and die. Ok, no problem about it. I wouldn’t criticize If we just died. I complain about the fact that we take damaged and get pushed back (like if we did a small jump back) to immediately fall in this acid again. And only then we die. If an enemy hits you, you will be pushed back and, if you’re close to an edge, you will fall in the acid, get pushed back again and only then you’ll die. In area’s with small platforms surrounded by acid, one misstep and you’ll fall in the acid, be pushed back two or three times and only then you’ll die. If we are not supposed to fall in the acid, why don’t we just die by the first contact instead of doing all these hops?

[Score: 4.0/10] FeeSooeD is a challenging game that only hardcore fans will enjoy. Its design choices are questionable in so many aspects that I find it difficult to suggest it for casual players. With so many other good titles in developer’s resume, I could expect much more from this game. With some small changes in design and gameplay, I believe it could become interesting for a wider range of players. That said, if you want to try it for yourself, I hope you find your journey satisfactory.

Dev: BUG Studio Publisher: BUG Studio
Played on: Xbox One | LifeisXbox received a digital review code, provided by BUG-Studio.