Almightree: The Last Dreamer has just enough tension to overcome its sloppy controls.
Despite apparently swiping some visual ideas from Bastion and a main character design from a Final Fantasy game, Almightree: The Last Dreamer’s gameplay couldn’t be more different.
In Almightree, You play as a blond-haired boy running for his life while the world collapses around him. The only way for him to set things straight is to revive the saplings of an Almightree, a powerful tree that might just restore balance and stability to the universe. It’s a decent set up for the scenario, and is dwelled on just long enough to give the game context without thrusting the narrative in your face every two minutes.
In each of the game’s 20 stages, your goal is simply to traverse a set of blocky platforms to the end of the level where an Almightree sapling lies waiting to be revived. There’s not just one catch, but two. The first: segments of the levels are incomplete, asking you to move blocks from place to place to form stairways that allow you to progress. The second: While you try to work out how to get to the next area, the world is constantly collapsing behind you. Take too long to advance, and you’ll fall with it.
Almightree’s main challenge is in finding the right blocks to move and working out where to put them. Thankfully, the stages often (although notably not always) provide some alternate routes, preventing them from becoming too frustrating an exercise in trial and error.
However, the method of moving blocks, which the game calls “plantsportation”, can take a while to get your head around. Instead of directly picking blocks up you first have to select where you want them to be transported, which feels a little counterintuitive, so much so that you’ll still be running back and forth, forgetting the order you’re supposed to do things in, even in the latter stages in the game.
When you do finally get the hang of it, Almightree still suffers from movement controls that aren’t quite as reliable as they should be. You’ll spend a lot of time descending from areas you climbed up accidentally, or just trying to get the little blond bastard to walk in the right direction. The directional buttons appear sensitive when you don’t want them to be, and unresponsive when you do, which can land you in trouble when the world begins moving erratically beneath your feet.
But even if the controls aren’t always doing what you ask of them, Almightree is still decently paced, with new challenges being introduced every few levels to shake things up. Unmovable metal blocks and impassable thorn-covered plants force you to think differently about how you place your blocks, while bunches of flowers that shock you if you walk over them at the wrong time, if a little arbitrary, add an extra element of timing to the gameplay.
All these obstacles combined with the constant threat of the level being destroyed in your wake creates a level of suspense decidedly scarier than the game’s cutesy visuals might suggest. The feeling of relief when you just barely get past an area before the wobbling blocks you were standing on fall away into nothingness is palpable, even more so when you find out there are no in-game checkpoints. Almightree isn’t messing around, and spending 5 minutes on a level before failing and having to start over can be excruciating.
Generally, the selection of annoyances that accompany Almightree’s gameplay do enhance the levels of stress you’ll feel while playing it, but this can be a good thing. After all, the first Resident Evil games would have been much less scary if you could move while shooting and control the camera. But it makes for an experience that will be a little too hectic for iOS gamers who prefer to work at puzzles at their own measured pace.
Almightree: The Last Dreamer isn’t quite a dream come true, but for those that can handle its issues, it’s not a complete nightmare either. The game will be fairly repayable for collectors who want to pick up every hard-to-reach egg collectible dotted around the stage, and anyone who wants to relive the thrill of the chase that gives Almightree a unique edge over other 3D puzzle-platformers.
Almightree: The Last Dreamer is out now on iOS. Developer: Crescent Moon Games Website
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