A Reasonably Well Done 2D Platformer, but Lacking in Flavour
As someone who survived on Pot Noodles in my university years, I get it. I’d have killed for a good ramen. I’m not sure I would have worn a wok on my head like the ramen ninja in Noodlebound, but I can appreciate the aesthetic.
I quite like how Noodlebound has chosen a theme and really gone for it. It’s a 2D platformer where the checkpoints are street food vendors. Enemies are stir-fry ingredients like leeks, butternuts and tomatoes. The collectibles are bowls of ramen, of course, while the bosses are all mushrooms gone wrong. You can’t accuse Noodlebound of having an inconsistent tone.
It is all a convenient excuse for some 2D platforming, of course. But take away the noodles, and Noodlebound is actually quite a middle-of-the-road indie platformer. It’s not bad, and it does have the odd moment of ambition, but the abiding feeling I have is familiarity. I feel like I’ve played Noodlebound, sans noodles, many times before.
Caught Between a Wok and a Hard Place
There are 40 levels here, which is roughly the norm. Each starts with the ramen ninja moving left to right through reasonably discrete 2D levels. The ramen ninja has a slash, a jump and a dash. The dash gets you over long tranches of spike traps, while the slash is a little limp – you will need to be closer than you want to enemies – but does a job. There are no moves beyond these three, not even a crouch or run button, but that’s not unusual for a budget game like Noodlebound.
Enemies follow some well-worn archetypes. There are the ones that move, the ones that shoot, and the ones that explode if you get close. There aren’t all that many of them, either. We counted four different enemies, not counting the bosses, which isn’t stupendous.
The emphasis on death-rattle explosions, though, does mean that there’s a slightly different tempo to Noodlebound. You’re often trying to zip past enemies rather than stick around. By triggering the exploding butternut-thing, you can take out other enemies without having to endanger yourself. One of the other enemies also explodes on death, so there’s an emphasis on speed and evasion in Noodlebound. It does give this ramen a faintly unusual flavour.
Udon to Death
These sub-£5 indie platformers tend to be on the too-easy side, but Noodlebound is ever-so-slightly more challenging than that. I still finished it in one sitting, across an hour or two, but the palms got sweaty at times. That’s mostly because of the reasons I mentioned. You are not only evading the enemies; you are evacuating before they catch you in their blast. There are several sequences where the enemies are close together, and the platforms too, so you have to be on it. Most of my deaths came from knockback from an explosion (you can be launched from a platform when you’re in an explosion) and from mis-judging the length of the ninja’s dash.
I also died a fair few times at the game’s bosses. These are all variants of Cogumago, a mushroom wizard (which is probably a ramen reference I don’t get), and they don’t leave you much room for error. You only have two health pips, so you can only make one mistake. When Cogumago can take nine or ten hits, is invulnerable for much of the battle, and has an army of enemies on speed-dial, the encounters had us retrying a fair number of times. The bosses don’t do anything out of the ordinary – missile mortars, ray beams, that sort of thing – but they’re in a concentration that makes them hard to avoid.
You’ll Find Them by Ramen Around
Difficulty is tied to the ramen collectibles. The levels are often incredibly easy if you don’t bother to search them out. But there isn’t much fun in leapfrogging the only challenge within Noodlebound, so we recommend hunting for them. It adds some needed friction to a loose, simple game.
Other than everything we described, Noodlebound is unremarkable. There is nothing in the level design that could be deemed clever or interesting. It’s all moving platforms, spinning blades and collectibles hidden in enemy-filled nooks. It’s where Noodlebound falls down: there isn’t a single moment in any of the levels that I could recall or comment on. Noodlebound may have 60 levels, but it almost didn’t need to bother. They all do much the same thing.
Noodle Love
I certainly didn’t dislike Noodlebound. I get a hankering for simple, 2D platforming that can be completed in a single evening, and Noodlebound delivers in that regard. Like a Pot Noodle, I suppose, it did a job – but it could have felt more filling, satisfying or memorable. It was something that kept me occupied in the moment, but I will struggle to recall any of it in a week’s time. In all honesty, I am forgetting it even now.
Not the most resounding of recommendations, then. Noodlebound may love its noodles, but its 2D platforming felt less substantial and flavoursome than its favourite meal. It’s more like a broth, perhaps.
Important Links
Noodlebound Serves Up Fast-Paced Ramen Samurai Action On Xbox, PlayStation And PC – https://www.thexboxhub.com/noodlebound-serves-up-fast-paced-ramen-samurai-action-on-xbox-playstation-and-pc/
Buy Noodlebound, Optimised for Series X|S – https://www.xbox.com/en-GB/games/store/noodlebound-xbox-series/9NFJV87P48TZ/0010
Buy an Xbox One version – https://www.xbox.com/en-GB/games/store/noodlebound-xbox-one/9NVF4XJVX6B6/0010
Or a Windows PC drop – https://www.xbox.com/en-GB/games/store/noodlebound-windows/9PJKMTQ75SNP/0010
