Save Me Mr. Tako! was a great game on the Switch a couple of years back, with an interesting premise. While there are many retro inspired indies these days, most of these follow a similar pattern by taking after the NES. While NES inspired games are not bad, Save Me Mr. Tako! changed things up in this genre by taking visual inspiration from the original Game Boy. After a split between developer Chris Deneos and publisher Nicalis, the game was pulled but thanks to new partnerships with Limited Run Games, a new version of the game is here in the form of Save Me Mr. Tako: Definitive Edition.
Save Me Mr. Tako: Definitive Edition sees you playing as an octopus who must go on an epic quest to bring peace to both the Octopus and Human kingdoms, and I must say that I was impressed from the moment I started playing. I felt the charm of a game like Super Mario land and Super Mario Land 2, but with modern refinements was what I was seeing. The more I played, the more I wanted to play. Everything felt so well designed about it, with the music also functioning well as a throwback to that style. I began to see more classic games represented here like Link’s Awakening, the GB Mega Man games and so on, and saw how much of a tribute this game was to the large variety of games and genres that were on Nintendo’s handheld brick.
Tako feels like he could be a great mascot character for the indie scene as well, much like Shovel Knight and Shantae have become. Tako can wear a number of hats, (up to 50 different hats) and each give him a variety of abilities. These range from flower attacks, taking more hits, and even bow and arrow attacks. None of this feels like a stretch, and the game’s many side quests, puzzles, and mini-games really do give the game a good sense of fun.
For every throwback that is present in the game though, there are also refinements. Jumping and attacking feels much more controlled and natural than many of the best original Game Boy games, and the music sounds like you remember it sounding with nostalgia and not like it actually did. As the game went on, the difficulty ramped up and I loved the challenge and in this Definitive Edition, I noticed that some issues in the original version are no longer here and the promised rebalancing of the game felt great. Towards the ends of the game in the original release, I noticed some slowdown that should not have been there and it has been fixed in this version.
In addition, the Definitive Edition contains new difficulty modes that will be very helpful to players and the addition of the hint system and auto palette option really do make a big difference here. There are a number of other changes, such as a neat including of a sound system, to let you listen to the music, and some new border images, but overall this just feels like a very polished version of the original release. The game was meant to be an update but due to the split with Nicalis, that was made impossible, and required a new release.
I must commend the developer on the decision to replicate the feel of the Game Boy and even with changes as the game went on, it still managed to feel and look like those games I played as a child. The Definitive Edition fixed the issues I had with the original release, and I truly love this game. This is just a well designed game that is an amazing throwback to a classic system, and I hope more people give this a chance. I highly recommend checking it out now!
Disclaimer: A review key was provided