Saomi [Xbox]
Developed by Naoka Games, Saomi is a 2D platformer, with 60 levels for you to complete. You play as the titular character, Saomi, who is on an adventure to find a rare family diamond that has been lost - though sadly the game doesn’t actually tell you this itself, you’ll only learn this via the game description or the trailer. You’ll progress through the levels, jumping over platforms and avoiding floor spikes and various enemies in your path, utilising jump pads and the skills you’ll learn in order to make it to each level’s exit door, collecting diamonds along the way.
I initially started this review a few months ago, but as soon as I began, Saomi tossed some problems my way: every time an achievement popped, it would kick me back to the main menu screen. Not entirely game breaking, but definitely a pretty frustrating thing to have happen repeatedly. Our backlog has been growing quite considerably, so we put it on the back burner in the hopes of any upcoming patches… and then it was 2023 and we’d still not picked it back up - oops. Thankfully though, those patches seem to have since come to fruition, and the issue has been resolved, so let’s get back into it…
The controls are a tad clunky at times, with the player character feeling slightly heavy when jumping, almost pulling you into the hazards. You do start to get used to this after a while, but sometimes it’ll throw you for a loop again, and makes things rather challenging. Playing in normal difficulty, you have access to checkpoints spread out across levels, which can really help to negate some of that frustration, since you won’t have to go right back to the start of the level every time - but on the harder difficulty, ohh boy. It can drive you mad. Eventually you’ll gain access to other abilities such as a double jump and a dash, and these help to make it a bit easier for you to control.
The visuals of Saomi are very simple, with areas ranging from the desert, with pyramids in the background and scorpions as a threat - alongside the floor spikes - to later levels inside the pyramids, trying to avoid mummies and eventually you’ll even make it back outside to a lush green forest. The soundtrack permeating each level is somewhat decent, but does become quite repetitive after a while, especially when you begin to struggle and the repeated droning starts to wear you down a little!
Overall, Saomi proved to be a fun but challenging title. With only 60 levels, it doesn’t take a whole lot of time to get through - though on the later levels, the difficulty may slow you down considerably. Available for £3.29 on Xbox, Saomi isn’t an expensive game by any means - so if you’re a fan of precision platformers and are looking for something new to challenge yourself with, it might be worth giving a go.
In the end, we decided to give Saomi the Collecting Asylum rating of 6/10.
Are you interested in Saomi? What do you think of it?
Let us know in the comments below!
- V x
Thank you to QUByte for the Saomi Xbox review code!
