The Mummy Demastered

Genre: Metroidvania

Players: 1

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Review:

The Mummy Demastered is a Metroidvania based loosely on the 2017 Tom Cruise film, and while the film is generally seen as a critical failure and a box office bomb, this game represents one of those rare times when a licensed game actually ends up being better than its source material.

The presentation here features nicely-detailed, well-animated pixel art graphics and some truly fantastic electronica music (though I’ll say this music honestly seems like it’d be better-suited to a cyberpunk game). This game really feels like it had the same level of care put into it that WayForward gives to its own Shantae series, although don’t expect the two to play similarly just because they’re both Metroidvanias.

In terms of gameplay, The Mummy Demastered plays as if the designers sought to answer the question, “what if you played through a Metroidvania-style Castlevania game with a gun-based character?”. Repeatedly, this game makes nods to the Castlevania games, such as with zombies endlessly bursting out of the ground, or skeletons who toss bones at you. There are also occasional nods to the Metroid games, such as places where flying bug-like enemies endlessly spawn out of acid-filled holes for you to shoot down to refill health and ammo. However, despite these nods to tradition, the game does feel pretty original, thanks to a character whose machine gun would feel more at home in a Contra game. Still, for the most part, this is simply a solid Metroidvania.

However, I do have to address this game’s frequent frustrations. While it’s not enough to outright destroy the experience, this game repeatedly does things that make it less enjoyable. The primary gun feels weak and takes forever to take out even common enemies, and additional weapons all have limited ammo. Players are only allowed to carry three of these weapons at a time and one type of explosive, and can only change these selections in specific rooms. When you die, you need to hunt down the undead version of your old character and kill him to retrieve all of your equipment, which seems like a clever idea, but is ultimately tedious. Level design and enemy placement often seems intended to annoy players with enemies hounding the player – again, less of a challenge and more tedious and frustrating. And always, always, always, while you’re exploring the game’s mazelike levels, you’ll feel like you’re having your hand being held by the extremely talkative character Russel Crowe plays in the film.

I feel like, with a bit more work to iron out these problems, The Mummy Demastered could have been a really fantastic Metroidvania, one of the better games in the genre on the Switch, even… despite that the Switch is absolutely overloaded with Metroidvanias. The presentation is fantastic, and the combination of different elements gives it a unique feel despite clearly calling back to classics of the genre. However, with so many flaws and frustrations constantly mucking up the experience, this game gets downgraded to merely “good”, which is a shame when it had potential to be much more.

tl;dr – The Mummy Demastered is a Metroidvania that’s much better than the terrible 2017 Tom Cruise film it’s based on, taking elements from Castlevania, Metroid, and even Contra for some pretty unique gameplay, with a superb presentation. It’s a pity, then, that this otherwise excellent experience is marred by numerous frustrations, from a weapon system that’s limited in numerous ways to a frustratingly chatty and hand-holdy Russel Crowe. This game that could have been one of the better entries in the genre on the Switch. As-is, it is still pretty good though, and fans of the genre should definitely give it a look.

Grade: B

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