And it is not that the results of recent years, with the due exceptions of course, are able to disprove us. Fortunately then comes a title like The Mummy Demastered to show that there is always an exception to confirm the rule.
Do you know the latest remake of La Mummia, recently released at the cinema, of very dubious quality? Here: WayForward, Shantae’s dad among other things, managed to pull off a real gem, for the happiness of metroidvania lovers.
SAND, MUMMIES AND MACHINE GUNS
There are very few points of contact between The Mummy Demastered and the new film of La Mummia, but we do not feel like considering it a defect.
WayForward has obtained the license to make a themed videogame, but apart from the context the title goes its own way, that of a solid metroidvania in charming retro style. The narrative premises are therefore few, the excuse to take up the rifle and start to bring back to sleep a little ‘mummies.
Princess Ahmanet, ancient pretender to the throne of Egypt, has awakened after a couple of millennia; in the meantime, his desire for domination has grown, and now his aim is to conquer the whole world, unleashing sand, devastation and an army of infernal creatures on it.
Fortunately, a security team has been set up against this kind of supernatural rivalry: Prodigium. We are an agent among many all the same, and somehow we will have to stop Ahmanet before there is nothing left to save.
Action, adventure and exploration make The Mummy Demastered an incredibly successful product within the genre of metroidvania, as perhaps we have not seen since the days of Axiom Verge (and in truth those who wrote it also preferred it).
Moving within strictly two-dimensional environments, developed according to the cases in length or height, we will kill enemies by continuing along a partially guided narrative, but that leaves a lot of freedom of action to the player. Screen enemies are many, varied and fierce, each with certain attack patterns, and we will not have our complete arsenal at the beginning.
However, the learning curve seems to have been studied excellently and will allow both the novice to learn mechanics of a very particular genre, and the veterans to feel at home without everything (at least up to the final levels) seem too easy. After all, Egypt can be very insidious.
PLAYSTATION TROPHIES 4
The platinum of The Mummy Demastered is relatively simple to get: most of the work is to complete the story, explore the entire map and collect all the weapons, artifacts and collectables. It must be said that the latter are untraceable, so you can not control at any time which you have already collected and where. There is also a trophy that requires you to complete the game without dying once. Honest as we are we would never suggest using cloud or usb-based bailouts to keep quiet … but know that it’s perfectly feasible at the moment.
A JUMP INTO THE PAST
There is a very specific reason for that little touch of class “Demastered” in the title. The production of the guys of WayForward seems on the one hand to make fun of the invasion of today’s market by the many remastered, on the other calls a very specific vein, that of pixellosi metroidvania, whose return on stage never displeases.
Thus, “demasized” is basically the same graphics, made in a sublime retro style in pixel art, true workhorse of the developer in other productions. Do not miss even a little ‘healthy violence end in itself to Metal Slug, made of small environments in which you can proceed to the mad by leveling the machine guns, Run style and style.In all other respects, however,
The Mummy Demastered rewards caution, strategy, the study of game environments and enemies. We must proceed with caution, especially in the early stages where we will be very vulnerable, looking for the classic secret rooms in which to find health enhancers and then the capacity of ammunition. The protagonist, moreover, can learn new skills by recovering the artifacts of the
Egyptian deities, acquiring among other things the possibility of jumping higher, to breathe underwater, to charge the enemies and so on. Although a handful of hours are enough to complete the main story, the developers have adopted some strategies to encourage backtracking: on all the presence of 50 well-hidden medals in the seven different areas of play.But there are also optional weapons that can make life easier (too much), each thought for a very specific type of enemies.
And again: areas reachable only after having obtained a certain skill, continuing in the adventure. A “negative” aspect that we feel to point out is perhaps that of the excessive simplicity of the title in its final phases, when we now have all the upgrades, all the weapons and all the artifacts available. The final boss himself becomes a walk.
