Xbox Reviews

Wells Review

Review Wells | Last year Wells did a soft-launch in Brazil, it must have been a great feeling for the small Brazilian development team to launch their game. Now the rest of the world follows and everyone can play Wells. Question that remains, is it an actual fun experience? Find out in this review! 

THE GOOD

  • You are greeted by a simple cutscene that introduces you two different characters. The playable character George Wells and the villain.  It’s definitely not the most original story but it gives you a clear objective and meaning. Something that many other 2D indie-games fail to accomplish.  Throughout the game you’ll see a few more short cutscenes to keep the narrative going, it’s a nice reminder who you are trying to beat.
  • The highlight from Wells are the ten boss fights, each require a different tactic and provide a decent challenge for the player. A few of them are really memorable and impressive, best of all they make you forget and forgive the somewhat repetitive gameplay.
  • The five different weapons play a crucial role in the gameplay and you’ll need to switch often. I am not the biggest fan for the slowdown switching effect but I understand why they did that. You have a few easy weapon puzzles along the way that changes things up a little and some enemies can only be killed by a specific gun.
  • After finishing the game a New game + unlocks, I was highly surprised that they didn’t take the easy way and just made enemies stronger. Kinda like Bayonetta’s difficulty modes things become totally different with more enemy set-ups. You won’t get a been there, done that feeling because of this. The only negative thing is that you’ll have to replay the first weaker levels again.

Mixed Feelings

  • Wells is not a bad looking game but things do become a little rough. It’s a good thing that the developer decided to go with a 2D game with 3D levels, things look more realistic this way. I had the immediate feeling that they wanted to prove themselves too much, for some levels (for example the train level) things totally pay off but the first few levels look really disappointing. And the lack of color can become an issue too. Not everything is negative though, bosses look great and impressive and the later levels have much more visual variation.

THE BAD

  • The first few levels feel very repetitive and the weak level design and visuals don’t really help it either. It improves later on though, so much that it seems to be made by an entire different developer. My guess is that they started with the first levels and learned from it, the second half from Wells is without a doubt three times better than the first three levels. Remains a shame that the game starts pretty weak and dull though.
  • Music and sound isn’t a strong point for Wells, you’ll be hating the sound that George Wells makes while jumping right from the start. In general the sound effects aren’t good enough for today’s standards .

Score: 59% | Boss fights and the later half of the game make up for the weak beginning from Wells. I’m very curious to see what Tower Up Studios will do next, the studio clearly has some potential. For now, Wells isn’t a game for everyone but platform fans will definitely like it!

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