{"id":18503,"date":"2018-12-10T00:01:52","date_gmt":"2018-12-10T00:01:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/?p=18503"},"modified":"2018-11-29T15:17:14","modified_gmt":"2018-11-29T15:17:14","slug":"save-me-mr-tako-switch-pc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/2018\/12\/10\/save-me-mr-tako-switch-pc\/","title":{"rendered":"Save Me, Mr. Tako (Switch, PC)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>With titles like Shovel Knight and The Messenger<\/strong><\/a>, 8-bit NES styled games are all the rage.\u00a0 But you don\u2019t see too many retro revivals in the style of the old black and white Game Boy.\u00a0 Which is a little strange since that handheld produced a lot of classics like Super Mario Land, Tetris, Kirby, and even Pok\u00e9mon!\u00a0 Heck, my number one favorite Zelda game: Link\u2019s Awakening, was on the Game Boy.\u00a0 But now comes Save Me, Mr. Tako, which is styled just like a Game Boy game and could\u2019ve been a real classic had it been released back then.\u00a0 You play as (mostly) an octopus named Tako (Tako is octopus in Japanese).\u00a0 The humans and octopuses are at war, but when Tako rescues a human girl, he must decide which side to stand for, and save the world in the process.\u00a0 The game plays like a 2-D platformer, similar to titles like Kirby or Starfy (but much harder).\u00a0 It\u2019s available to download on Switch and PC, but reviewed on Switch here.<\/p>\n

Tako can run, jump, and shoot out ink to freeze enemies for a few seconds.\u00a0 Stunned enemies can be jumped on to give Tako a ledge to jump from to reach higher areas, kind of like how Samus uses ice missiles in Metroid.\u00a0 You\u2019ll choose stages from hub worlds similar to Kirby, but sometimes you\u2019ll explore towns, talk to people, and venture into dungeon mazes, giving the game a more RPG feel.\u00a0 Tako can wear hats to give him and edge and change his abilities, too.\u00a0 Some are just quest items and let him talk to certain people, while others change his attacks and movements to be fast, or shoot out different projectiles.\u00a0 Most work like the ink does, though.\u00a0 You also have an ink meter that you must watch out for. \u00a0If you run out of ink, you\u2019ll have to wait for it to refill again or collect drops of ink in the levels.\u00a0 Sometimes you\u2019ll also play as other characters, even humans, with their own abilities.\u00a0 You can also change the screen size and background colors, like a Super Game Boy.<\/p>\n

There are a lot of things to like about this game, but there are also tons of problems with it, too.\u00a0 Jumps are a little floaty, and while this works to your advantage most of the time, sometimes it doesn\u2019t.\u00a0 This is also one of those \u2018one hit and you die\u2019 games, which annoys me personally.\u00a0 Granted you can get hats that let you take more hits, but it still frustrates me, especially since the game gets much harder later on.\u00a0 Goals and objectives are usually pretty clear, but there are a few times you may not know where to go.\u00a0 And if you pick up this game after not playing it for a while, good luck remembering what to do next!\u00a0 The overly complicated story doesn\u2019t help either.\u00a0 They also don\u2019t give you good instructions on certain gameplay aspects.\u00a0 You can collect feathers and jewels in the levels.\u00a0 I figured out that feathers give you lives, and jewels can let you buy lives, but what does that box that shows your hat icon do?\u00a0 Is it a reserve hat?\u00a0 I don\u2019t know.\u00a0 But the biggest offender is the game-crashing bugs.\u00a0 I encountered three right in a row near the end of the game (in Belys\u2019 Temple if anyone is wondering).\u00a0 When games freeze up on me, I give them the \u2018three strikes and you\u2019re out\u2019 rule, and unfortunately this game surpassed that.\u00a0 Which is a shame because I really would\u2019ve played this game all the way through, problems and all.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Kid Factor:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Save Me, Mr. Tako is rated E-10 with ESRB descriptors of Fantasy Violence and Mild Language.\u00a0 You mostly shoot monsters with ink, but sometimes you can dispatch them with knives and swords, but they just fall off the screen upside down when defeated.\u00a0 Sometimes Tako can encounter dead people with spears sticking out of them.\u00a0 In the text, words like \u2018damn\u2019 show up from time to time, and other mature themes come up like drag queens, but very infrequently.\u00a0 But really the best reason why this game is better for older players is the high difficulty, even on the \u2018easy\u2019 setting!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With titles like Shovel Knight and The Messenger, 8-bit NES styled games are all the rage.\u00a0 But you don\u2019t see too many retro revivals in the style of the old black and white Game Boy.\u00a0 Which is a little strange since that handheld produced a lot of classics like Super Mario Land, Tetris, Kirby, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":18429,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-game-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18503","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18503"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18503\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18505,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18503\/revisions\/18505"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}