Save Me Mr Tako: Definitive Edition from Christophe Galati and Limited Run Games is a revamped take on the 2D RPG platforming adventure. Check our Save Me Mr Tako: Definitive Edition review!
In Save Me Mr Tako: Definitive Edition from Christophe Galati and Limited Run Games, you’ll be experiencing a revamped take on the 2D RPG platformer on Nintendo Switch. You can play either in the Standard difficulty setting, which means you start with ten lives and a single hit will end you, or you can play in Classic, which limits you to nine lives, which certainly ramps up the tension. There’s also the Heart difficulty setting, which adds three hearts for your character, which definitely helps.
The game is set in a world in which humans and octopuses are at war. Tako is a pacifist octopus and wants the war to end before it’s too late. One night, he saves a woman from drowning. Lalabicjoua, a fairy, witnesses this and decides to grant him the ability to survive on land. By using this new ability, Tako sets out on a massive journey that will see him solving puzzles, using enemies to progress further in his journey, as he finds a variety of hats to help him survive against the different bosses he’ll have to fight.
You’ll walk around with the left analog stick or the D-Pad, jumping with the B button – the longer you press it, the higher your jump! And so that you don’t end up taking a leap of faith that could lead to your death, you can look up or down by pressing the corresponding direction. Pressing up will also allow you to interact with other characters, as well as walk through doors. You can spit ink with the A or Y buttons to make enemies turn into platforms and can change your current hat with the hat in your reserve by pressing the X button. You can’t spit ink forever, so be sure to keep an eye on your ink meter on the upper left corner of the screen and refill your ink gauge as needed.
When I started to play Save Me Mr Tako: Definitive Edition, I certainly started to get some Kirby’s Dream Land vibes. Since the game pays homage to the Game Boy era and features a cute character, there are certainly some similarities. Tako can visit Loulou’s Magic Hag Shop to get the first hat – a heart that will grant an extra hit – to get things going. There are another 49 hats for you to find during your adventure, and each one will grant you a different ability!
As you play through each stage, you’ll be able to collect small, medium, and large crystals of a variety of values. Once you’ve collected crystals worth 100 in value, you will gain an extra life. You can also find extra lives hidden on some levels, usually after some specific platforming segments are cleared. Search high and low, break every barrel you find by using the might of your ink and of the different items you can shoot depending on what hat you’re wearing, and keep a good stock of lives!
The Options menu will allow you to configure your experience with Save Me Mr Tako: Definitive Edition. You can change the game’s color palette between the automatic option or one of the sixteen presets. You can set a grid layer on the screen to simulate that old-school graphics feel. The screen can also be altered from the default 16:9 aspect ratio to a 4:3 one with up to 9 background themes, or you can have a Game Boy looking frame around the screen – either in the 16:9 or 4:3 aspect ratio – with the action in the middle of the screen.
Save Me Mr Tako: Definitive Edition is a delightful and charming 2D RPG platforming adventure with an old-school infused presentation that has some quality-of-life improvements you’d expect from a game releasing on the Nintendo Switch in 2021. It has a ton of content to explore, with bite-sized stages and longer dungeons with boss fights to take on. It pays homage to a ton of classic games from the Game Boy and the NES eras to give us an adventure that stands out on Nintendo’s console. Save Me Mr Tako: Definitive Edition is out on Nintendo Switch with a $14.99 asking price, and it’s one you should add to your collection.
Disclaimer
This Save Me Mr Tako: Definitive Edition review is based on a Nintendo Switch copy provided by Limited Run Games.
