Rose-Tinted Regrets: Glover’s Nostalgia vs. Reality
Ahh, the curse of the rose-tinted glasses strikes again. As a child, I had fond memories of Glover on the original PlayStation. As an adult, reviewing this port of the game on modern consoles, I would like to make a formal request for a refund of my time back.
Not even knowing now in my wiser years that Glover has the might of the legendary Oliver Twins behind its original development has improved the situation. This port does nothing in the way of improving the controls from the original release which results in an incredibly frustrating 3D platforming adventure.
A helping hand in understanding Glover
Glover (QUByte Classics) begins with the exposition that explains just how you end up controlling a sentient glove. After the wizard wearing the gloves causes an explosion in his cauldron, Glover is thrown out of the window of the wizard’s tower. The other glove falls into the explosive mixture and becomes the evil Cross-Stitch. The explosion also causes the crystals atop the tower to fall off. Glover turns them into bouncy balls before they land and smash, but they get flung far and wide. Glover then takes it upon himself to return all the crystals and stop Cross-Stitch.
The worlds you will need to visit to recover the crystals include those themed around Atlantis, pirates, space, carnivals and more. Each world consists of three stages, a boss stage and a bonus stage to unlock if you can collect every card in that world, known as a Garib.
Ball and Glove
But what makes Glover unique from other 3D platformers is that you are not just controlling a glove, but a glove that takes charge of a magic ball as well. It is this ball that hinders you as much as helps you, for it can be an unruly beast to control. On the B button you have two methods of movement, bouncing and throwing. Why these aren’t on separate buttons is beyond me as there seems to be little in the way of contextual pressing between them.
Then, on Normal difficulty, whenever Glover jumps on the ball to navigate water, the directions are flipped. On Easy difficulty this goes away, but add to this an unruly camera and it’s a nightmare of navigation whichever way you play it. In the end I found the easiest option was to try and do as much of a level without the ball and then fumble my way around them with the ball when absolutely necessary.
A handful of extras
Sometimes, choosing the right form of the ball is required. The standard ball can only get you so far, and other times you will need to press the RB button to change it to a bowling ball, ball bearing or even the crystal it starts out as in order to progress. There are others you can unlock by using the cheats that still work in this version if you hold down the RB button on the pause menu and input them, as well as others that can make playing through a more palatable experience. Cheats such as unlimited lives and invincibility can be invaluable; running out of lives kicks you back to the main menu. It is more forgiving than some other platformers of the era that really made you play conservatively with precious extra lives and the audacity to use Continues once all lives were gone, however. I’m looking at you, Rayman.
That said, if the ball pops on a level, that also counts as a life lost. So, as well as protecting Glover, the ball is a precious commodity too.
The levels themselves are quite well designed, with lots of variety. They are more like puzzles as you figure them out, and with better controls would be a worthy challenge to navigate. As such, they are just constant sources of frustration.
And there is some variety to be had in the bonus levels as well; one has you firing cannonballs to hit targets in a time limit, another has you navigating a maze and there is also a flying level. However, unlocking these will take some effort as you need to collect every single Garib in the three main levels for that particular zone before it will open.
Visuals and Extras
These aren’t the only extras as it were. A time trial mode is available from the main menu where you can replay levels for the fastest time possible. And here you can also find a gallery with concept arts for bosses, characters, levels and more.
But unfortunately, Glover (QUByte Classics) is a straight up port of the original game, so how these pieces of concept art have translated into the actual game are very basic, even in this new release. It is virtually untouched and aside from some smoothing out on Glover themselves and maybe the ball, everything else looks very dated indeed.
A Frustrating Port That Fails to Capture the Magic
If you can get past the annoying controls and unwieldy camera, then there is a semi-fun game to be found in Glover (QUByte Classics). The levels are well designed and the bonus stages offer up some good variation, but it will take some patience and effort to get to that point.
As things stand, this port should have remained a relic of the past.
G-Lovely Links
Glover is Back! The Magical Glove Returns in a Remastered 3D Platformer – https://www.thexboxhub.com/glover-is-back-the-magical-glove-returns-in-a-remastered-3d-platformer/
Buy Glover from the Xbox Store – https://www.xbox.com/en-gb/games/store/glover-qubyte-classics/9n8x91gzjjrt
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