Super Sami Roll [Xbox]
Sonzai Games’ Super Sami Roll has you playing as Sami, a cute little blue lizard whose best friend, Vera, has been kidnapped by the evil Albert VII. You’ll need to journey through worlds, and a bunch of well varied levels ranging from bright green fields, molten lava and sandy deserts in order to track her down. Blasting through the levels as quickly as you can to reach the owl at the end is the main aim, with boss levels available at the end of each world.
With three difficulty modes; Relaxed, Normal and Advanced, it’s suitable for all levels of player - with the Advanced mode offering a surprising level of challenge, even for the most experienced of platforming-players. Relaxed removes time limits, and will have checkpoints in most levels, whereas Normal has a time limit and checkpoints in some; and Advanced has all checkpoints removed. Each level will be awarded an overall ranking at the end, with this being ranked based on timing, although there are coins and hidden raspberries and keys available to be collected within the levels, too. These collectibles can be avoided in order to get a faster time, as they make no difference to the rank itself, with S+ being the best ranking available, though the coins do delay the decrease of the timer (by adding an extra second per coin) making it beneficial to grab any you’d be passing by, anyway.
Movement in Super Sami Roll is great, with tight controls and a satisfying roll mechanic for getting around. There’s a great deal of momentum with Sami’s rolling, which takes some getting used to, particularly when trying to avoid falling off ledges. Sami also has a super long tongue that allows him to latch on to surfaces, allowing you to dart from place to place - although on occasion this will be frustrating, as it fails to grab onto a surface, leaving you to fall to your demise. This is the single worst part of the game, as when it works it’s brilliant, but it frequently just leaves you feeling robbed.
Levels will introduce various new concepts, such as swinging panels that you’ll need to time rolling over carefully, huge balloons to bounce off of, rising sea levels with platforms that you’ll need to time your jumps to avoid falling in, and pinball-styled bumpers that will ping you off of the level if you knock into them. There’s both manual and semi-automatic camera controls, with semi-automatic focusing on the main course - so if you’re looking out for secrets and shortcuts, then you’re best sticking to manual.
The visuals are gorgeous, with floating worlds filled with coins to collect and enemies to avoid - the game also begins with a fantastically done animated segment that’s like something straight out of a Saturday morning cartoon. This is something that we really enjoyed within Smelter, also from X PLUS (albeit here they are publishing, rather than developing - though Sonzai Games did support with that title). The stages have a great range of environmental designs, keeping things fresh. Bosses are well designed, with fairly straightforward methods to defeat them, and very reminiscent of classic platformers. The sound design is absolutely adorable, with Sami making cute little noises when he jumps and bounces around or uses his tongue grapple, and the music is very familiar, with a SEGA vibe all throughout - with tracks evolving from energetic tunes to chilled vibes.
You can customise your character via Flynn’s Swag Ship Shop, with a variety of tints for you to change the colour of Sami’s body, there’s also accessories such as a Macho Mustache, Duck Float and Baseball Cap for Sami to wear, with me items being available in each world. You’ve also got a closet to access all of the stuff you’ve already purchased, so you can swap them out whenever you visit Flynn. Additionally there are secrets to purchase, giving you hints of where various secret exits can be found, and there’s even an alternate game mode available for you to play a fun, but challenging split screen Marble Mode race with friends!
Priced at £12.49 on the Xbox Store, it’s a great price for the amount of fun it’ll give you. Overall, we had a great time with Super Sami Roll, and found it to be one of the best platformers we’ve played in a while due to the variety of levels and gameplay mechanics, and having speed running be a central part of the levels really encourages you to go back and play them over and over again to perfect your run.
In the end, we decided to give Super Sami Roll the Collecting Asylum rating of 8/10.
Are you interested in Super Sami Roll? What do you think of it?
Let us know in the comments below!
- V x
Thank you to X PLUS Games for the Super Sami Roll Xbox review code!
