So Many Me is a puzzle/platformer game for the Xbox One that just came out this last week, and is free for the rest of July for Xbox Live Gold members, which I happen to be. The game follows a little green alien looking guy named Filo (first in, last out, I can only guess pun intended). As soon as you start into the game, you meet Asimov (a bigger green alien looking guy with a sweet mustache?), and he sets up the game letting little Filo know that as he recovers these seeds that are spread throughout the world, he will obtain copies of himself, which he can then turn into blocks to help him traverse the world. There are also other things to obtain, such as little pink bags with smiley faces on them that will give you new costumes that you can outfit the copies with so you can tell them apart, and then there are coins and relics blueprints that you can obtain to make the game a little bit easier as you go (but not THAT much easier, as explained below).
I took a chance on the game (since it was free and all), and instantly I took a liking to the game. I have always been a sucker for puzzle games, and the first few stages of this game were very quick to suck me in and get me hooked. The gameplay is pretty smooth, once you get the hang of the controls, and for the most part, I was able to get little Filo and his clones to do what I wanted them to do. As you gather more of the little clones (Many Mes?), you are able to get some more freedom to how you solve each puzzle and gather all the items scattered throughout the stages.
And that is when things take a dark turn...
The difficulty in the game ramps up rather quickly, and it was very early on (stage 5 or 6 perhaps) that I was finding it nearly impossible to obtain all the items in each stage. And it wasn't that I wasn't seeing how to solve the puzzles to get the items, it was the fact that there is so little cushion in the game for error, that I would spend five minutes or so setting up what I wanted to do, just to get halfway through what I had set up and then getting killed, which would in turn reset everything that I had set up. This can be very frustrating, especially when you have done it five or six times and keep misplacing one of your blocks by fractions of an inch, causing the whole thing to fail. But I persevered, and kept my head down, and kept on plugging, knowing that I was getting closer and closer each time, and eventually I was able to get all the items and move on to the next level.
This trend continued throughout the course of the game, where I would start to think I was finally getting it all under control, and then they would introduce a new mechanic which would just throw a wrench into everything that I had been working towards. Then I would have to start over again with the new power that they had given me, and through trial and error figure out all the ins and outs of the new power while incorporating it into my arsenal of other powers.
As if this wasn't frustrating enough, the boss fights in the game are a trial in patience that even a parent of three kids, such as myself, could never have prepared for. Each step of each boss fight consisted of just simple trial and error mentality until you figured out the exact place to stand, or the exact place to put one of your blocks, once again with little to no cushion for error, until you were finally able to get through the fights. I did think that the fights were clever, and made you use each of your powers in unique ways to take down the bosses, but the feeling that I was never really in full control and the game could just take me out for no good reason, causing me to start the fight all over again, was extremely frustrating to say the least. And the final boss fight in the game, followed by a platforming escape that makes Metroid and Mario look like walks in the park...words cannot express how close I was to just shutting it off and moving on with my life without finishing the game. But as above, I persevered and finished it off and now I have a sense of accomplishment that can only come from going through such a traumatic ordeal...at least as far as video games go.
I feel that I have talked the game down in a bad sort of way, but there were many good aspects of the game throughout as well. The backgrounds, enemies, and the different costumes that you get for your little clones were very colorful and created a beautiful world to look at. The graphics on the game are cartoony, but in a good way, and really bring the characters to life. The dialogue in the game is also very light-hearted and even laugh out loud funny at times, so long as you don't take things too seriously. And the game never does take itself too seriously, and if you can keep that in mind and keep from getting frustrated and breaking your controller, you will find a very enjoyable game that looks like it is aimed at kids, but has something for everyone.
So, for my final thoughts on So Many Me. I think it is a well designed puzzle game, that with some minor tweaks to the difficulty and allowing the player a little more margin for error, would have been a truly great game. I still think that the game is very solid, but the difficulty in collecting all the items and the overall length of the game (I finished the main story mode in around 5 or 6 hours of gameplay, with all items), keep it from being something truly special. If you are a fan of the genre, than I think you will find a lot to like in this cute little game, but if you have little patience and don't care about collecting everything, it would probably be best if you just pass over this one.
My Rating for So Many Me on the Xbox One is 6.5/10
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