Armillo comes from developer Fuzzy Wuzzy Games. They were founded in 2011 and are a group of passionate, hard working gaming professionals who have been working together for a while now with such companies as EA and Radical Entertainment. Armillo is about a space armadillo called Armillo who comes from a peaceful galaxy that is invaded by the invasion of the Darkbots. The Darkbots are a robotic alien race that has come to steal the resources of Armillo’s home planet after they have destroyed all of their own resources on their planet. In invading the planet, the Darkbots have kidnapped Armillo’s brother Bolobol and they have also taken the critters of his home-world. Armillo must free them in his quest to claim his world back.
The gameplay in Armillo is a cross between many great titles such as Sonic the Hedgehog and Super Mario Galaxy. The user will be controlling Armillo, who rolls around the level and has a speed boost power-up to break through objects. These powers can be useful, but can also be a burden since doing this makes it really easy to knock your character off of their level since most parts don’t have any borders. Armillo can also jump in for standard platforming action from either one area to another or from platform to platform where the floor may then disappear out from underneath them. There is also pickups in each of the levels that can help the user in their quest for everything from dynamite to help blowing through rocks or walls, or also doing damage to enemies as well as a cannon that Armillo can pick up. That cannon can shoot projectiles to keep him safe from enemy fire but with this attachment he can’t do his speed boost, so it use with discretion.
There are a total of five solar systems, with each of them having four planets. The first planet starts out with an introduction type of level and then the difficulty level of the game makes leaps increasing the action with different challenges that always end with some sort of boss battle, which is a great to see for such a small game. Along with these levels, there are also secret levels and a whole lot of content to discover. Each level has keys to collect to go into areas to collect critters to bring the user’s total score up at the end of each level and each level is timed so the user will always find themselves racing up against the clock which is a nice feature to see in a platformer such as this one. During the course of each level the user will find himself rolling through the level and entering into a parallel universe which they will battle obstacles as they jump from world to the next to finish each level.
The controls for Armillo are really basic with the attacks and basic commands being on the side buttons on the Wii U gamepad and the camera can also be easily rotated to see around the planet so its easier to tell which way is best to take in the level. The user may find it hard to control Armillo when using the speed boost since several times it may knock them off the map costing them a life and forcing them to restart a section of the map. The graphics for Armillo are made up mainly of highly polished 3D objects. For traveling around the planet this is a really a nice change to other games. There is also some 2D timed action events that take place, so there is a nice amount of variety between the graphics as well. During the course of playing the game there were stuttering moments that we found during which the frames dropped from time to time, but this was nothing the user really should be concerned about. It can affect the gameplay a little at times though. For the price of the game, Fuzzy Wuzzy Games has put a lot of polish into Armillo and we look forward to their future improvements on this franchise as well as future releases.
Final Verdict:
Armillo is a great experience on the Wii U. It has a little bit of story but plenty of gameplay to keep it fresh for users looking for a great 3D platformer. The gameplay switches up plenty from level to level, so there are no two levels alike making this a great pick-up-and-play title for anyone with a Nintendo Wii U. The amount of puzzles found in each of the levels keeps the user on top of their game. Most of them are pretty easy but still provide the right amount of challenge. Armillo has a good amount of replay value since there are always faster times to beat in each level and plenty of extra content put into the game that will bring the user back time and time again.
Overall Score: 7.7 / 10
RGN Rating: Bronze Game
Publisher: Fuzzy Wuzzy Games
Developer: Fuzzy Wuzzy Games
Review Copy Info: A digital copy of this game was provided to RealGamerNewz for the purpose of this Review
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