Super Ubie Land is a fun, CHALLENGING platformer inspired by the classics, ‘Super Mario World’, ‘Kirby’s Dreamland’ and ‘Donkey Kong Country.’ It is a love letter to fans who wish to continue to play 2D based platformers similar to the ones we all loved to play during the NES and SNES era.”
There’s little that can be expanded on it, apart from what your concept of something being fun and/or challenging can be. You play as Ubie, a little green alien who has crash landed on Climate Island and must make your way through several themed world levels to find the missing parts of his ship and defeat Dr. Terrestrial. Pretty straightforward right? That’s pretty much what you’re going to get with these adventures of Ubie: No nonsense classic platforming action. Ubie can run, jump and glide using a balloon. As such a physical controller is recommended for playing a game such as this (I was using a PS4 controller to play) as a keyboard can prove tricky for those precise jumping and gliding moments, and there are many.
Even though each World follows an aesthetic theme – you’ve got your regular plains which give way to the desert, then the snow levels, etc. However there does appear to be a common method of progression which involves gliding from enemy to enemy whilst avoiding the insta-kill enemies/obstacles. In many levels this does require near-perfect timing as one slip up sees you floating to your demise. The final level of Pug Pug Desert was especially tricky, adding in some tight wall jumping to avoid deadly spikes. I shudder to think how I would’ve handled that level on a keyboard. Along your way of recovering your ship parts there are various collectibles to grab: each level has a certain number of bees in each level to rescue leading to rewards when you return them to the Queen Bee, wraps to give to a streetwise sushi chef, and coins to buy music to listen to at your leisure back at your ship.
There were a few niggles I was going to mention, such as a lack of autosave feature that forces you to backtrack to your ship to save. Or when you get a “Game Over” it resets your progress through a World. However during the course of writing this review I’ve been in contact with Notion Games founder Andrew Augustin and a few days ago he made an update which solved these problems (I’m not saying I am responsible for the changes).
Super Ubie Island REMIX is indeed a love letter to the platformers of days gone by, but it’s by no means easy. You’ll need quick reactions and a decent amount of patience just like the good old days, but with a lot more floating.
