After being granted life by Terry, you must hop and roll your way through a mystical island, helping him breathe sense into more magical siblings. Check out our Skully review!
Hop, skip and roll your way to victory!
On a mysterious remote island, a skull washes up on shore and is reawakened by an enigmatic deity. Dubbed Skully, the newly reanimated being has been summoned to intervene in a war between the deity’s three siblings, whose quarrel jeopardizes the island they call home.Fate has bestowed Skully with a second chance at “life” and his adventure will take him across a strange paradise as he seeks an end to the conflict that plagues the isle.
• Hop, skip and roll your way to victory. Dodge obstacles across the island as Skully, a skull reanimated by the power of magical clay.
• Adapt to your environment. Transform into three distinct forms to overcome challenges and defeat enemies.
• Traverse a mysterious island. Roll through 18 different levels in 7 distinct ecosystems each packed with unique dangers.
• Explore a compelling story. Fully voiced dialogue and cutscenes breathe life into the island’s inhabitants and the charming world of Skully!
Skully is a new platformer from publisher Modus Games and developer Finish Line Games that combines platforming and puzzle-solving in an interesting way. You are Skully, a skull that washed up on a magical island. Skully is put into a magical pool of clay, and as it fills up with clay, it’s granted life! Terry needs your help. He and his magical siblings used to live on the island together, but as brothers and sisters do, they have fought, and now he needs your help to try and reunite them, returning the island to what it used to be.
Once you get control of Skully, you will roll around everywhere, rolling in whatever the direction your stick is facing. It’s pretty easy to get going at first, and then jumping comes into play. You will have to jump over certain obstacles. Take, for example, water, which is bad for your health – it will usually kill you since you can’t get out of it quick enough. The levels are designed with rolling around in mind, and this includes lots of loopy ramps that almost make you think of those cool marble games from back when you’re a kid. One of the issues I did have, though, was when there was some precision jumping required.
There are some spots where you will need to navigate a precarious set of jumps over water, jumping from skinny platform to skinnier platform, and they go on a bit. Mistime a jump, and you’re in the water and dead, having to start at the previous checkpoint, which could be a few mins back. As you jump to the small platforms, your ball form still rolls, making it very easy to end up in the water. You will eventually get past these sections with a bit of trial and error, managing to hit the next checkpoint so that you don’t have to repeat that ordeal again. It was not a deal-breaker, since the game is not packed with sections like the one I’ve described, but it’s something I did have to mention.
Rolling isn’t the only mechanic in Skully. As you progress through the game, when you are in the clay pools, you’ll actually be able to turn yourself into a golem – in fact, into multiple golems! You will get access to one soon after you start the game, but you will gain access to others later on, each with its own set of abilities. This is where a lot of the puzzles and fun comes into play since the abilities for each golem will allow you to explore new areas. Push big blocks to make bridges, or move rocks so that they become platforms. You will get to double jump, throw Skully over a long distance, or attack. You can even activate the power of a golem, jump out, activate another golem, and use its powers at the same time!
This is where Skully shines as it forces you to think hard about how to solve the problems in front of you, especially when you need to use multiple golems at once. There was never a point when I was stuck for too long, but I did like how the team makes you think for a bit about how you’re going to get through and onto the next section.
One of the things that are going to rub some people the wrong way is the sheer number collectibles in the levels. They are little leaves you can collect that act as waypoint markers to help you figure out where to go, but there are groups of theme that are hidden through the levels in awkward spots. Some levels can have over 400 of these leaves for you to find, which might seem like too many. So if you’re not a big fan of collectibles, this might be something you skip doing.
What impressed me was the visual and audio presentation of the game. Skully starts with an almost stop motion video leading to being discovered by Terry and being brought to life. On top of this, the game has some really good voice acting. Terry and his siblings all had really great and high-quality voice work. I was surprised about how great each actor was at bringing out many emotions, particularly during the siblings’ fights, even reminding me of when I was younger and growing up with four younger siblings.
Skully was a good time on PlayStation 4. Switching between multiple golems, solving puzzles, and rolling and hopping through each location felt great. Other than the sections that require some more precise jumping, Skully is a fun experience on Sony’s console, so I do recommend that you pick this one up for a rolling good time.
Disclaimer
This Skully review is based on a PlayStation 4 copy provided by Modus Games.
