When you were little, or in the case of some people, in their mid thirties, everyone dreamt about their toys coming to live. They imagined that their favourite teddy bear would patrol the garden in the dead of night looking for snails to eat, or that their plastic train set would have union problems to sort out, having lengthy negotiations about pay scales. Not just me right? Well now with Toy Odyssey: The Lost and Found not only do they come alive at night, but they’re in a constant state of war with each other. Also evil killing machines in the shape of toy clowns, or paper airplanes gone badly wrong, are corrupting the core of the house. Wake up quickly!
Toy Odyssey is a game that is hard to pin down. I’ll tell you now though, it’s certainly not Toy Story. So get that idea out of your head because it’s much, much, darker than that.
You play as Brand; a kind of solider, adventurer type and it’s your mission to protect your Master, Felix, from the nightmares around the house that they live in. Every night, Brand goes out to fight other toys, heads off on missions, and collects resources for the base. Brand gets knocked unconscious (a lot) and then the night is over and it’s on to the next one. You collect metal nuts, which can make you stronger and able to upgrade all your weapons and clothing.
Now, the major point about this game is that it is rock hard, you will die a lot, and the game is very difficult and hugely unforgiving to begin with. There aren’t any markers, there is just a vague mission and some objectives and you’re sent off into the night, fighting creatures that are going to take you out straight away. What’s the point? Well for the easily gratified and easily distracted gamer they might just be put off in the first hour of this game, tempted to switch it straight off again. I was tempted, but I advise you not to do that as there is depth to Toy Odyssey and with patience, all your hard work pays off.
The game requires a number of things from you every night. There is a mission, which normally requests you to get to a room, meet someone and clear out the said room of toy monstrosities. Then there are some side quests like collecting a number of nuts for a special item, or ‘find this item in a certain time’ type challenges. You have a jump button, that later extends to a double jump to climb up to the platforms in all the rooms. Then you have a weapon in one hand, like a sword or an axe to swing at the enemies, and in your offhand you have a throwing star or a throwing axe. The game plays like an old school “Castlevania” or “Metroid Prime” with its mix of platforming, combat and RPG elements. Sometimes the gameplay goes really old school with hard controls and a stupidly annoying difficulty level, but at others it’s a joy to play.
When you die, or go unconscious, you end up back at your base, which is Felix’s bedroom. Here you can upgrade your items of clothing to get stronger amour, craft new weapons from blueprints you find on the way and generally have time to think about where you went wrong the night before. There is also a chance that every night your base will be raided, so you have to build a basic fort with sentries and everything ‘tower defense” from all the items you collect on your journey. There is a lot to take on and at first it is too overwhelming, but it starts to make sense and after a short while becomes pretty addictive. There are over 300 different enemies in this game and there is a lot to do and collect. The big game changer though is that after every night the rooms in the house are procedurally generated. So you might think you have a handle on where the rooms are one night, the next night the whole geography has change drastically. This big feature keeps you on your toes and makes the game interesting and alive, but at the same time, because of the difficulty level, I would have liked to have practiced on one constant room and the same layout for a while without it changing so often.
The visuals in Toy Odyssey are a great mix of brilliantly drawn backdrops and well-drawn enemy toys. It still looks like a retro game with its platforming ‘Castlevania’ roots, but it ploughs its own field with some nice visual touches. The perspective of the house from the toys point of view is nicely handled and there are certain rooms where it can all seem a bit flat. But that is rare. The lovely comic book cut scenes are used well in the beginning montage. The sound is also very good with a Tim Burton movie like score, which is magical and scary with its fairytale orchestra sounds. The effects are good, but nothing major. There are over 30,000 lines of dialogue to be had and the voice over work is okay…but nothing to write home about.
Overall and Toy Odyssey The Lost and Found is a game that could be instantly dismissed when you begin to play, with it being really hard to get into, having a difficulty level that is set very high and an overwhelming amount of things to do with no clear instructions. BUT, when you give it a bit more time and effort, the game rewards you in many ways, with its charm, sound and in-depth gameplay.
So don’t be scared, embrace the nightmare and learn to play with your toys again.
