Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout

 

The game that took PlayStation by storm back in August last year, Fall Guys is a brilliantly chaotic new take on the battle royale genre. Inspired by Takeshi’s Castle and Ninja Warrior, you are tasked with completing a plethora of obstacle courses, team minigames and races in order to best 59 other players and win the Fall Guys crown. By late 2020, the battle royale blueprint had been done to death thanks to the popularity of games like Fortnite, Apex Legends and PUBG. So, I am thankful that Fall Guys released and arguably blew all of those games out of the water based on originality alone. Fall Guys managed to blend a currently successful genre with one that had started to die out and should be commended for that accomplishment alone. 

 

Players begin a game alongside fifty-nine others and each round they progress through brings them closer to the coveted Fall Guys crown. Eliminations happen when players fail to finish a race in time, fail to survive certain obstacles or end up on the losing team. The inspiration is clear to see with many courses visually looking similar to those seen on everyday television. The stage Jump Club was obviously influenced by the sweeper from Total Wipeout and the courses in the game almost act as conduit for all TV gameshows, offering fans an opportunity to experience them in a fictionalised setting. How fun the courses are to play is the most important aspect of the game and for the most part they are excellent. Slime Climb is a frantic battle to scale several levels encountering balls, moving shelves, and revolving cylinders. Its my favourite course in the game and arguably the most challenging usually eliminating the most players and making me feel pumped when I manage to finish it. Fruit Chute has you dodging large bananas, apples, and watermelon as you advance up an escalator in reverse. It’s a round where rapid movements and duking the fruit is necessary for survival and leaves you feeling so fulfilled when you reach the top. There are some rounds though that seem like pointless inclusions. Fruit Match is the only logic-based round in the game and feels out of place. Very few players get eliminated in that round too making me groan every time it comes up. Tip Toe is a good round but one that requires a lot of luck and little skill to beat. Sometimes the floor tiles shake to suggest that are fake and sometimes they don’t making the round feel very random at times and also quite cheap. The final stages themselves are climatic and chaotic though. Hex-A-Gone is all about movement and staying on your toes and those are the finals I’ve found the most success in. Royal Fumble tasks the player with holding onto a tail when the clock runs out and I believe its this round that requires the most skill. Lunges are almost essential to catch the tail carrier and I have snatched several victories from the jaws of defeat due to my experience with that round. The only finals I have issues with are the races. Fall Mountain can involve up to 15 players making it feel crowded and compact. On top of this, the place you start at the beginning of the race is randomly determined so you could be placed right at the back of the pack for no reason. These are small gripes overall though and the courses do a great job of enticing you to have another go even if you do encounter some rage inducing moments along the way.

 

The presentation and style of Fall Guys matches the tone perfectly. The jellybeans you play as are cutesy making them very easy to market (I’m sure we will be getting plenty of plushies) and the vibrant colours suggest a sense of comfort and calmness which is very quickly shattered by the ensuing chaos. It’s perfect and demonstrates the mood Mediatonic were trying to create beautifully. You can dress your jelly belly however you want unlocking costumes and colours as you progress through the levels. There are several costumes in the game based on characters from other game franchises such as Chell from the Portal series, Gordan Freeman from Half Life and Sonic the Hedgehog with more being promised in the future. The game did suffer some horrific server issues at launch though making the it almost unplayable for a few days. While these issues have been fixed there is no assurance that a server crash like this will not happen again which will worsen some people’s experience with the game.  Other issues include a party cap of four which seems counterproductive given the size of matches and the accessibility of the game. Fall Guys is very easy to play (only utilising four buttons) and thus should be played in larger parties. Hopefully, a patch can be implemented to expand party sizes in the future. 

                            

The only additional problems the game has are minute but still quite vexing. The game offers no offline play so practising rounds is not an option. Some of my favourite memories with the game were watching friends either fail or succeed so it is a shame that no private matches exist even if I do understand why they don’t. Microtransactions are also in the game and are extortionate as you would expect. Luckily though you earn enough Kudos (the game’s currency) for completing games so new costumes and taunts can be unlocked without spending your own money. Lastly, the game’s team events can be great when played with a group of buddies or terrible when played alone. These events can stop great runs to the final if a teammate does not pull their own weight and seem to run against Fall Guys’ free-for-all nature.

 

To summarise, Fall Guys is a fresh take on the battle royale genre and offers plenty of multiplayer fun and chaos. The game is easy to play and welcoming to newcomers whilst also allowing those with knowledge of the courses the chance to flex their muscles in order to gain an edge. It will probably have you raging at times when certain courses come up or the servers disconnect you, but the sheer satisfaction of victory trumps any misfortune faced along the way. Style and simplicity are the game’s strongest attributes, allowing the game to appeal to all and with more seasons promised by the developers, the game is sure to have a long lifespan. Mediatonic have shown a great level of dedication and passion for their product and this has surely paid off commercially and with the game’s popularity.

Rating: Winner by Knockout

8/10