I'm not sure the target audience for this game, but I am certain it flew under their radar. I cannot think of any marketing for this game, it is tied to a reboot of a classic movie franchise, and somehow it extremely good. That somehow is the talented folks at WayForward. I find myself wanting to go back and play it just to listen to the incredible soundtrack and walk around the environments.
You start off with a small cutscene, and then you are thrown into the mix. You're a random Prodigium soldier going after Princess Ahmanet. Then you just start shooting. Your main gun is not the strongest but has infinite ammo, which is an amazing start to a game. Get out there and explore and shoot your damn gun. It rules. You also get 2 grenades that can hurt enemies or blow up blocked entryways. You eventually get stronger guns that have finite ammo. You can replenish ammo, grenades, and health from destroying certain parts of the environment ala Castlevania lamps, or sometimes a drop from a killed enemy. It replenishes your ammo at a rate I found to be perfect. You don't always have the finite ammunition weapons and grenades, but it gives you enough to rotate between your guns and grenades at a super fun rate.
That's basically it. They reveal your movement, guns, and grenade info right away and then you get to blast monsters relentlessly. The sign of a good game is how quickly they let you get into the core gameplay loop, and The Mummy Demastered is quick with it. They put you in this fun zone right away and all the upgrades you get from here improve on that formula.
Despite being short in total length and relatively simple, it is dense and succinct to perfection. You master the movement and shooting, because it's all you have, and they scatter fun and interesting power-ups across the game that you unlock swiftly because of its size, leaving you always interested and always getting stronger. Elite mechanics. The unlocks are varied and unique. The very first movement upgrade you get is that the soldier can hang from the ceiling. I have never seen this done before in a metroidvania in such a way, and not as the first upgrade. Getting a cool new movement upgrade very early unlocks so much more of the map while taking away that annoying part of these games where there are a ton of different unattainable rooms that you have to come back to later. This still exists, but at such a smaller scale that it isn't a bother. You then start getting more guns, ammo, and health upgrades. The interesting thing about the upgrades is they figured out a way to make them all work thematically as well. Some of the items you get are military, like rappel gear or a bandolier, and the more mystical ones like being able to run faster and jump higher, are from ancient Egyptian scrolls and trinkets. It makes sense and it feels good to get supernatural power-ups without it feeling tacked on. It doesn't need to be this way, but it adds a little extra flair that it works out.
The art style is amazing. It is the best version of pixel-graphics I have seen. They stylize it well, so it doesn't look like a jumbled mess of disgusting pixels. It really captures a classic look that will hold up over time. The maps are designed expertly. Diverse, compact, and interesting, with lots of movement and diversity in travel. You start off jumping and climbing, but then you get a speed boost upgrade. The coolest thing about the speed upgrade is that your speed grows over time and keeps momentum through rooms, which makes some areas of the game a legitimately unique run-and-gun segment. You'll notice that two rooms away there is a jump that you can probably make with your new speed upgrade, since you can jump further. You'll have to make it at least half of the way through the previous room to build enough speed for it. You end up pre-emptively shooting at things that aren't on screen yet, so you can do enough damage to kill them and keep running, then enter the next room at full speed and get to a new area with the jump. It's an incredible, unique mechanic.
Near the end of the game I got 2 powerups that I don't think are required, but made the game even more fun. You get a buff that prevents you from getting knocked back on hit, and you get a phase dash. The phase dash sends you a short distance (in any direction!) and during the animation, you cannot take damage. It's quick, fun, and streamlines movement at the perfect moment during the playthrough. When you now reach max speed with your speed boost, and you have phase shift, you'll notice you glow red. If you press the button for phase shift when at max speed, you'll dash in that direction until you hit an immovable object. You destroy enemies, breakable objects, and at this point I discovered secret walls! The pacing with which you get your items, get to experiment with them, and then discover the depth that they offer is, again, perfect. You get a new ability, can use it on repeat, and it has more than one application. The team at WayForward deserves incredible praise for this feat.
The game is punishing in interesting ways. The difficulty doesn't come from an obnoxious method like enemies with no telegraph or too large a health pool. In fact, some of the enemies are downright cannon fodder. It's simply the way that the maps and the enemy locations are expertly crafted and placed makes it a challenging experience. There is a bug enemy that jumps backs and forth in a horizontal line only. Combined with the platforming you must accomplish, and the knockback from hits taken, and plus the number of these enemies on screen at one time, and it's the perfect mixture. They telegraph their moves on repeat, but having to balance jumping between platforms, shooting them, and also perhaps dodging other enemies on screen at the time, and you have a fun, difficult, but fair system. It's honestly so well done I was astonished. Repeatedly, this game is proven to be a masterclass in the genre.
I do have one thing I have to mention. I am an extremely elite gamer. My first and only playthrough, I never died. I found out from reading about the game that there is a mechanic I missed entirely. When you die, the soldier you were playing as is resurrected as a zombie, and you take control of another nameless soldier. You have to go and kill your former self as a zombie, who now has all your gear and power-ups, to get them back. I can't really say how I feel about this because I never experienced it, but on paper it sounds dope and I think anyone who whines about it is a punk bitch. Should have been like me and not died, loser.
My favorite thing about the game is the storytelling. Not that it has an excellent story, but the way that it is done. There are basically no cutscenes, and since you are a soldier on a mission, all of the exposition is done via text blurbs from your commander. They are short, quick, and infrequent. You get just enough to keep the story progressing, and they take control away from the player for the shortest possible amount of time. Not every game needs to be a deep, Homer-esque epic. This game succeeds because it is not derivative, despite being a movie tie-in. It is 99% action and 1% explanation. The golden ratio to which metroidvanias/platformers should aspire.
I legitimately could not tell you the name of a single character, even the powerful female mummy you are chasing the whole time. Partly because I didn't care to remember it, and partly because they don't beat you over the head with her squawking at you. At some point in gaming, some dickhead said that Banjo-Kazooie was cool and you need to have the final boss talking to you in quips every 10 seconds or they are not established enough as a foe. Puke. You start the game, your commander basically tells you "Go check this place out," then shit goes haywire and the rest of the game is "better kill that evil mummy before she kills us." It's awesome. She talks some shit to you every time you see her, but it lasts 10 seconds and then you pull your gun out and start blasting.
Take a page out of The Mummy Demastered's book. It was short, taking me about 3.5 hours to complete, but it's length is not a detriment. The maps are small and well-built, so you don't get sick of exploring and backtracking. The discovery of new items, upgrades, and bosses is so frequent that you don't have time to get bored. You're going at an incendiary pace simply by playing. The gun upgrades are varied, extremely cool and diverse, and powerful. It does so many things right and doesn't allow you to become exhausted by them because it's suddenly over. I would much rather a product like this, short, succinct, yet very well done. You feel accomplished and satisfied at the end.
It's a little bit Metroid, little bit Contra, and a little bit Metal Slug; in tone, gameplay, and look. WayForward Technologies developed The Mummy Demastered, and they deserve accolades for their design decisions. They take a few specific mechanics, they craft them expertly and polish them well, and they don't try to do too much. This is a movie tie-in game to the 2017 The Mummy. It was not expected to be good, but it is. It outshines most other metroidvanias by a large margin.
That is essentially the mantra of the game. Awesome platforming, cool guns, always be shooting. It's also accompanied the entire time by a completely dynamite soundtrack. I went out and bought it right after the game. For an unknown game tied to a movie, they made an incredible fucking metroidvania with an outstanding soundtrack. This game is a compact, venerable, masterpiece. It sets out a simple goal and achieves it with gusto.
The Mummy Demastered is ambient, it's interesting, it's fluid and precise. The gaming is quick, constant, and always enjoyable. It's balanced well and they give you a ton of fun options. It doesn't get boring, it nails things that a ton of other games in the genre try to do but can't, and it leaves you wanting more, in the best way possible. I honestly can't say enough good things about this game. I would call it a metroid-lite, and in that regard, it is without flaw.
