“Follow the paper trail and bring back the post”

LifeIsXbox’s Paperman Adventure Delivered Review | “Special Delivery” I have always been a huge admirer of the platformer genre especially the 3D style which includes games like Spyro the Dragon, Crash Bandicoot, Gex, and even Banjo Kazooie. So, seeing another 3D platformer I was eager to turn on my Xbox, grab my controller, and check out Secret Item Games newest platformer pronto! Did I manage to find all the lost letters and return them to those they belonged to or were my parcel delivery skills just not cut out for the job? Welcome to Paperman Adventure Delivered, a brand-new 3D platformer where you play as 4 different characters who set out to retrieve the lost letters stolen by the greedy dragon. You will need to use your character’s skills to help collect every letter, parcel, and more.

Developed by Secret Item Games and Published by Mindscape’s have released a new adventure… Paperman Adventure Delivered which surrounds searching different worlds for lost letters, parcels, notes, quills, gold letters, and like some platformers a letter that makes up the word M.A.I.L. Whilst running around witnessing the different concepts around each worlds design such as a tropical island, desert and even the top of a mountain. A lot of the times you will have to interact with puzzles switching back and forth between the other characters to complete certain tasks this could be done at any of the red mailboxes scattered around each level.

Once completing a level, you will then need to face off with the dragon, attacking and collecting the mail he has stolen to return it to the rightful owners. This game has the option to play couch coop split screen so that you and a friend can split up and collect mail separately, if you are a fan of collecting things, kicking enemies, and looking around till you have found every item then Paperman Adventure Delivered is the game for you. For every item you collect in every world, you will be able to rake in a lot of achievements boosting your Gamerscore but finding them can be unbelievably tricky… Trust me you will need to look high and low and in places you wouldn’t think to look.

Developer	Secret Item Games
Publisher	Mindscape

ℹ️ Reviewed on Xbox Series X | Review code provided by
PR/publisher, this review is the personal opinion of the writer.
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What I Liked!

• Art Style and Character/Enemy Models | It’s always nice seeing the different concepts when creating worlds for games such as this and I always admire how much work goes into them, instead of making a quick level and hoping for the best, each world has its very own unique look and feel. Secret Item Game went above and beyond by creating a large world full of different enemies and puzzles it was interesting to explore and find new routes and ways to progress. They were beautifully designed and full of colour and life you could see how much time they put into each world changing it to look completely different from what you explored previously. For example, when exploring the Manyfaced Islands, you are surrounded by the sea, Easter Island statues can be seen around, and different obstacles like hot lava, being a paper character would cause some serious damage by touching it, same as water. Each character also had a unique look Express being a blue letter with different shades of paper to show his hair and wearing trainers. Paperman has a red iconic mailman uniform. Scrolly is a rolled-up parchment in a green Shakespearean outfit with a quill on her back. And lastly Carl the parcel that wears a yellow uniform and hat with a backpack.

• Music and Audio | Each world has its very own theme like with the design of the world it is the same when it comes to the music. You will hear a tropical melody when exploring the Manyfaced Islands which truly gives you that feeling of being on a tropical island, although your character has no dialogue and usually responds with grunts or noises, although you do have a narrator who talks sometimes. The enemies and the mailmen NPCs around the map have no dialogue just noises.

• Achievements | Paperman Adventure Delivered is full of achievements and it was extremely easy to rack up Gamerscore as each achievement rewarded you with 25 Gamerscore for every time you collected a certain collectible this would be for every world. I raked in 855/1000 Gamerscore with only 3 achievements left for me to find. You can get achievements for also completing a level, and do small hidden things such as fall out of the sky.

• Wardrobe/ Character Customisation | You will be able to purchase different outfits for each character with several different styles surrounding each world which you can change anytime at one of the buying points. I loved rocking the sunglasses for Paperman, this was also a very nice touch as it gave each character a more stylish look instead of the basic one.

Mixed Feelings!

• Cooperation and Split Screen | Now please don’t get me wrong I did enjoy playing split screen coop with my partner and for a moment it was enjoyable but the issue we had was doing the puzzles and both needing the same character. This caused us to sit around waiting and if you were to get a small cutscene for opening a door then the game would use the whole screen instead of just the split screen which would cause one of us to die due to currently doing a puzzle. Another instance was the fact that the subtitles would show at the bottom of the screen and not on the screen of the person who was talking to the NPCs. Though it was enjoyable, there were just a few things we preferred to have changed that would have made it a better experience.

• Story and Campaign | Don’t get me wrong the idea was interesting and cute but it lacked more premise. I mean Paperman has delivered a million letters and to celebrate this huge achievement the post office does a golden letter that will be sent out to a handful of loyal customers. A greedy dragon watching the news wants these golden letters and all the mail and takes the post and 4 heroes on their way to work must retrieve the lost post. You set off exploring different worlds collecting all that was stolen and to be honest it just doesn’t seem enough regarding content. The cutscenes explaining what’s happened are more than a few stills nothing major, beautiful artwork of course but then you spend the entire game collecting nothing but letters, and it is 150 of each type plus the multiple golden letters and M.A.I.L to also collect. I just feel they could have added more than going around and collecting and doing puzzles maybe hidden lore or more. However, you don’t need to collect everything to finish the game if you defeat the boss for each level and collect the post from the dragon’s stash. The boss fights can be annoying due to having to collect 5 pieces of post to allow him to fight you whilst he’s raining hell down on you. You will have to collect 10 pieces of post altogether or 16 if you’re playing in coop, this is what you would need to do to get to the final round of any boss.

Things I Disliked!

• Camera and Gameplay Mechanics | I had so many issues with the camera angles in Paperman Adventure Delivered that made some parts of the puzzles extremely frustrating to do, sometimes the camera wouldn’t move at all glitching making it near impossible to see what I was doing in some parts. In one part I would be looking at my character through the wall, a mechanic where you can reset the camera would’ve been extremely helpful for this issue. Each character has their very own skill that will be needed to complete certain puzzles and obstacles a quick rundown of the character and what their skill is.
  Paperman – Can throw letters while aiming, using this to also teleport too far away locations and on certain platforms. Can also double jump.
  Express – Uses a dash mechanic to run super-fast to get across wooden bridges that break once you step on and running up and down ramps etc.
  Carl – Can push and pull heavy objects that other characters cannot.
  Scrolly – Can use her quill to glide and float on twisters or air. Can also create a twister to help with platforms. The problem is to use the character you will need to keep running back and forth to one of the red mailboxes scattered across the map to change which is frustrating at times, this makes the game a lot longer and honestly, I started to get bored after a while. I must admit they are pretty much easy to find but making a mechanic that let you change it where you were would have made this game a bit more enjoyable. The controls and physics are very outdated and feel very clunky, with the jumping mechanic not always solid enough so as you jump it doesn’t always react properly and sometimes glitches you into an object. Same with the pushing mechanic this would sometimes make Carl run at it super-fast and send the block flying somewhere else causing me to be unable to move the block and having to end the level for it to be respawned back into its normal place. No map also made it near impossible to know where I was going, and harder to find the collectibles I explored one island for 3 hours just to find 3 missing letters and still after all the time never found them and I looked everywhere. A mechanic that showed how close you were to a collectible, or a sound would’ve made this even better.

• Glitches and Bugs | I had so many issues when playing Paperman Adventure Delivered that it started to become an annoyance at first I was enjoying the game and even got my partner involved in the coop but even she got fed up with some of the mechanics not reacting properly like a certain puzzle using Scrolly she would just fall even though I was gliding and this would happen a lot, Carl would push objects further due to a glitch, camera angles would crash out. The map would sometimes not load, and I would fall out of the map or behind a wall. The number of glitches I found just made this gamer less enjoyable for me and I didn’t want that impression, especially for a game that reminded me of games from my childhood.

How long did I play the game before publishing? 18 hours
How long to beat the story? 6 hours excluding collecting everything
How many Achievements did I earn before publishing? 855/1000GS
How long to achieve 1000G | Over 18 hours
You’ll love this game if you like these | Spyro the Dragon, Crash Bandicoot

Conclusion