NOTE: The following opinions reflects those of myself and myself only. They therefore don’t reflect those of my colleagues at WeTheNerdy or the site as a whole. Carry on and fall down for fun!
INTRO
For those of you Nintendo Switch (and Xbox) players who have been clamoring for Fall Guys to come to the console you play on, June 21st came and it DELIVERED!
For the uninitiated, Fall Guys is a platform battle royale game developed by Mediatonic. The game involves up to 60 players who control jellybean-like creatures and compete against each other in a series of randomly selected mini-games, such as obstacle courses or tag. Players are eliminated as the rounds progress until, eventually, the last remaining player is crowned the winner.
The game was released by Devolver Digital for Microsoft Windows and PlayStation 4 on 4 August 2020. Following their acquisition of Mediatonic, the publishing rights were transferred to Epic Games. Subsequently, the game was made free-to-play on June 21st 2022, and released on additional platforms including Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S, with full cross-platform play support among all platforms. As part of the transition, the game adapted a seasonal battle pass system for its monetization, offering avatar customizations to players.
Fall Guys received positive reviews from critics for its chaotic gameplay and visual appearance. The game draws inspiration from game shows like Takeshi’s Castle, It’s a Knockout, Wipeout, and playground games like tag and British Bulldog. The seventh and current season is Sports and Stadium-themed.
With all of that said, is this game worthwhile? Well, based on the title it is, but why? Let’s find out!
GAMEPLAY
NOTE: The following notes on the Gameplay section of Fall Guys comes courtesy of Windows Central’s Zachery Cuevas, who documented most of the gameplay known at that time, while info on the Finals section comes courtesy of MrBeast Gaming’s Fall Guys video.
Race
What better way to start your journey to victory than a foot race? There are currently nine races available that will challenge your platforming skills, timing, and sometimes your patience. Here’s a recap of what’s available. (As far as I know).
Dizzy Heights – Spinning plates, rolling balls, spinning plates, and…more rolling balls stand in the way of you and sweet, sweet victory. Learn to time your jumps and ride the plates in the right direction.
Hit Parade – Unlike other courses that are centered around a theme, Hit Parade just throws everything and the kitchen sink at you. Slime? Rotating propellers? Swinging balls of doom? This course has got it all.
See Saw – The key to victory is to temporarily team up with your fellow Fall Guys to keep balance as you hop between the shifting platforms.
Door Dash – Use your face and try to find the right wall to crash into to progress to the finish line. (don’t confuse it with the Food Delivery App also named Door Dash!)
Gate Crash – Similar to Door Dash, instead of crashing through walls, you’re vaulting over them. Time your jumps to get over in one fell swoop.
Tip Toe – Aristotle once said, “Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet,” and you’ll think about this every time you encounter Tip Toe in rotation. Work as a team to find the safest route through trial and error, and then betray your friends in a final jump to the finish.
The Whirlygig – If jumping between floating platforms, dodging spinning logs, and sliding between rotating fans isn’t enough, add some extra adrenaline by making the final decision to take the middle launch ramp to the finish line (or play yourself by accidentally yeeting into the abyss).
Slime Climb – This one acts as both a race and a survival course. Outrun the rising slime and outmaneuver your teammates as you climb to the top. Be careful, one false jump, and your dreams of qualification are done.
Fruit Chute – Run up a conveyor belt and avoid being humbled by giant flying fruit.
Survival
There’s no room for error when a survival course is on your plate. The stakes are high, but remember — you don’t have to be the best; you just have to be better than the guy next to you. Here’s a list of some – if not all – of the current Survival-round games:
Jump Club – Time your jumps and find the sweet spots between the two rotating beams. Watch out for meddlesome contestants. A well-timed grab might spell the end for your Fall Guy.
Roll Out – Roll Out puts you on a set of rotating rings and has you bob and weave between them to avoid gaps and walls. Jumping around and running will put you in harm’s way, but the real danger lies in standing too close to other Fall Guys. Stay limber!
Block Party – Like Roll Out, Block Party is all about avoiding walls and maintaining your balance. Keep your cool, watch out for grabby Fall Guys, and don’t fall off the platform!
Perfect Match – Put your gray matter to work and memorize the fruits on the floor panels, then run to the panel that matches the fruit shown on the screen. When in doubt, follow the crowd. They all can’t be wrong, right?
Tail Tag – To win this game, you must end the round with a tail. Be sure to snatch a tail off of one of the Fall Guys, unless you started with one. In that case, run for your life!
Team
Sometimes you have to put your differences aside to team up and vanquish a greater evil. Or, in this case, qualify for the next round in the competition. The following courses break opponents up into teams.
Egg Scramble – Collect the eggs from the middle of the arena and place them in your team’s basket. Once the eggs are all accounted for, try to steal eggs from other teams! The team with the least eggs loses. Be on the lookout for golden eggs — they are worth 5 points.
Rock ‘N’ Roll – Teams must work together to roll their ball through an obstacle course. The first half of the course keeps the teams separate, but once both teams are out in the open — anything goes.
Fall Ball – Fall Ball is like soccer if the soccer ball was three times your size (and sometimes isn’t a soccer ball at all). Score on the other team and make sure they don’t score on you to qualify for the next round. You’ll quickly find this is sometimes easier said than done.
Team Tail Tag – Remember Tail Tag? This is Team Tail Tag. The rules are basically the same — the team with the fewest furry behinds loses.
Jinxed – Jinxed is a toxic game of tag. Players must either try and jynx other players by grabbing them or avoid getting jinxed entirely. The first team to get completely jinxed loses.
Hoopsie Daisy – Players have to jump and dive through hoops for points. The team with the most points wins. Simple enough.
Hoarders – Keep the ball in your court and yours alone. The team with the fewest points loses, so make sure your ball doesn’t accidentally roll into someone else’s area at the last second.
Final
You’ve run, you’ve survived, and you’ve even teamed up with your fellow Fall Guys. And where did it bring you? To the finals, baby! The following courses don’t end with a finish line; they end with the crown. So don’t mess up! These are the games in the Final Round that I know of (Thanks to MrBeast’s video on Fall Guys for reminding me of these).
Fall Mountain – Fall Mountain feels like a culmination of everything race up to this point. There are so many obstacles in this sprint up to the top, and once you make it to the top, the crown is a leap away. Just remember to grab the crown. Otherwise, everyone will laugh and you will lose.
Hex-A-Gone – Hop between disappearing tiles as you try to stay as high as you can on this course. This is a survival game, so stay cool and jump like your dub depends on it. The last Fall Guy standing claims the crown.
Royal Fumble – Just when you thought you were done with all of these TAILS. Grab the tail and make sure you’re wearing it when the timer goes off to win the crown.
Jump Showdown – The latest addition to the course lineup added via an update. You must jump over the spinning beams and avoid the falling floor to claim victory!
COSTUMES
New costumes are regularly added, usually for a limited time.] Some are of characters from different franchises, such as Gordon Freeman from the Half-Life series, P-Body from Portal 2, Godzilla from its franchise, Scout from Team Fortress 2, Sonic the Hedgehog and later Knuckles from his franchise, Doomguy from the Doom series, Jacket from Hotline Miami, both Ratchet and Clank from the Ratchet & Clank video game series, Cuphead and Mugman from the videogame Cuphead, an Astronaut skin with an egg on its head from the game Among Us, Sackboy from Little Big Planet, Astro Bot from the Astro Bot games, and so on.
Other costumers are based on the various in-game seasons of Fall Guys. Some of them include a Golden Knight, and others include more general color skins like Beach Ball, etc.
PROS
The Pros are very numerous. The characters are all cute, especially in those crazy crossover costumers. The randomized nature of picking the various Races, Survival, Team, and Final Mini-games ensures you (usually) never play the same exact sequence of games twice. You’re often matched up with other players very quickly. Most waits never took longer than 30 seconds to a minute at most. In addition, you can play Solo by yourself against 59 other players, or play in Squads of 4 or so players per Squad. There’s also Squad Celebration which allows 15 groups of 4 players to team up against other Squads. All of these can make for lasting memories and interesting challenges, especially if you’re paired with MrBeast and his squad. (He plays occasionally and did a No-jump challenge in that game).
CONS
- A LOT of the modes and games are random, making them feel too luck-based.
- The Microtransactions, while optional, still feel tacked on, especially for a now Free-to-Play game.
- There’s some Frame Rate drops when it matters most while playing against 59 other players.
- The repetition of the various maps and modes does eventually begin to set in.
- The salt that can result from losing at any point by a razor-thin margin, or in the final round in, say, Hex-A-Gone, where it’s just you and 1 other player can be EXTREMELY frustrating.
- Team Games and the moments in games like See Saws where you have to rely on other players to survive breaks the flow, and the immersion.
- Some stuttering and freezes here and there can ruin your match.
FINAL VERDICT
Overall, Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout on Nintendo Switch is impressive. The gameplay is addictive and varied, especially for a Battle Royale Platformer. The amount of fun and crazy costumes to unlock will keep you coming back despite loss after loss. The randomized series of games per match is highly varied and mostly never repeats. The types of battle royale options is also refreshing for the genre, such as Squads.
That said, The salt that will inevitably result from your losses in the penultimate or final rounds of a match will add up over the course of time and may lead to controller/console throwing. Technical issues are most prevalent when loading between rounds, and some match queues – at least for the Switch and Xbox on Launch – took FOREVER to load or find people for matches!!
Despite all this, the game is still incredible to look at, fun to play, addictive, and most importantly of all – a pleasantly enjoyable experience. It also helps that there’s NO Story elements to this game,ulike OTHER Battle Royale Games (*Cough* Fortnite *Cough*).
Final Score – 8/10
An Enjoyable, but Somewhat Frustrating, Experience for ALL Players.
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