Fall Guys

Genre: Arcade / 3D Platformer

Players: 60 Competitive / Team Competitive (Online)

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Review:

WARNING: THIS GAME HEAVILY PUSHES ITS PAID SEASON PASS

Fall Guys, sometimes referred to by its full title, Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout, was originally released on PC and PlayStation 4 in 2020. In 2022, this game was ported to PlayStation 5, Xbox One and Xbox Series S/X, and Nintendo Switch. This release on new platforms coincides with the game going free-to-play on all platforms new and old, with all versions supporting cross-play.

Given the game’s simple but colorful visuals, party atmosphere and multiplayer focus, Fall Guys seemed to many like an ideal fit for Nintendo Switch, so many have heavily anticipated the release on Nintendo’s hybrid machine. However, there are definitely some caveats here.

The first of these caveats come in the form of visuals. Fall Guys isn’t a technical showpiece game by any stretch, with its only real technical feat being the game displaying up to 60 of its jellybean-shaped characters onscreen at any given time, as both those characters and the arenas they’re competing in use fairly simple 3D visuals, and take place within a somewhat abstract world with a simple stadium surrounding the action. However, even with this unimpressive technical presentation, Fall Guys on Nintendo Switch is rough.

The first thing you’ll have to contend with here are lengthy load times for everything. While it does take a bit of time to get lobbies to queue up, even moving around in the menus is painfully sluggish, and quitting out to the menu after getting eliminated from a game will have you potentially waiting minutes before you can join a new game. In addition, while the game overall maintains a steady framerate, the actual jellybean-like characters do not, frequently displaying jarringly low framerates for their animations. This can be disorienting, and can even affect the gameplay.

As for that gameplay, there is a decent amount of variety here, with rotating minigames that all feature controls that allow you to move, jump, dive, and grab, but that can have you doing different things within them. Most frequently, you’ll be rushing through a maze or a gauntlet to a n exit, but you could be trying to survive a stage without getting knocked into pink goo beneath the stage, playing a simplified game of volleyball, or some other odd activity.

These minigames are generally enjoyable, but that enjoyment is limited by the sluggish nature of the fall guys themselves – they move slowly, can take a moment to change direction, they get knocked down easily, and take a while to recover when they are knocked over. While the clumsy nature of these characters is a part of the game’s charm, the lack of precision this creates in the controls often makes the game feel less skill-based and more luck-based, which can be frustrating.

Players can at least choose from a few different ways to join groups for the game, including 2- and 4-player teams. They can also create private rooms, although as of this writing this option is not currently working on Nintendo Switch. I will say that having cross-play enabled is a nice touch, and should hopefully ensure that online lobbies remain full for a good long while. Unfortunately, this game doesn’t gain much by being ported to Nintendo Switch – it’s strictly an online affair, and none of the Nintendo Switch’s unique features appear to be in use here.

One more thing to address is the monetization. Thankfully, it seems relatively tame here – players can purchase online passes, or premium credits, both of which are only used to unlock cosmetic items. Given how this game benefits from the increased playerbase being free-to-play encourages, I’d say this is probably the best-case scenario for this game.

Edit: Reports are starting to surface of the game automatically purchasing paid content without users’ instructing the game to do so, and the game’s publisher refusing to issue refunds. If this issue continues to persist, and continues to remain unaddressed by the publisher, I may have to reassess my review of this game.

Edit 2: Mediatonic is apparently promising to fix this issue and give refunds to anyone who was affected.

In the end, Fall Guys is still an enjoyable online multiplayer romp, but it definitely does feel compromised in its Nintendo Switch release, and that’s on top of the already-clumsy gameplay that was previously present in the game. If you’re looking to kill some time in some silly online multiplayer without spending a penny, the Nintendo Switch version of the game will deliver. Just expect much of that time to be spent waiting in loading screens.

tl;dr – Fall Guys is a free-to-play online-focused multiplayer game that has players competing in a variety of different competitions with up to 59 other players. While there’s a decent variety in the gameplay, and some fun to be had doing so, the sluggish controls feel limiting, and the technical compromises made in the Nintendo Switch version really feel like they hurt the game. There’s still some fun to be had here, and the price is right, but this definitely feels like a game that’s better on other platforms.

Grade: B-

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This game has been nominated for one or more of eShopperReviews 2022 Game Awards:

Runner-Up: Best Misc. Game, Best New Free-To-Play Game, Worst Port / Remake

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