Fluidity is one surprising little Wiiware title. On the surface, it’s just another physics-based puzzle game, but it ends up have more in common with Metroid than anything else as you gain more and more abilities. And just like in Metroid, at the end of the game when you’re finally all powered up, you feel like a bad-ass. A bad-ass puddle of water.
At the start of the game (oh, how that feels like it was so long ago), all you have is this puddle of water that you control indirectly by tilting your remote to tilt the level itself. Your puddle of water will slosh around and behave like water should, and you can make it jump by jerking the remote upward (the only flaw in the controls: it doesn’t always seem to work when it should). Your goal will be to collect Rainbow Drops and to achieve that, you will have to solve simple puzzles: find a rubber ducky and bring it to a bathtub, navigate through watermills, douse some fires… simple stuff.
But that is just the beginning, as you will soon begin to collect new abilities, the first being the water bomb. By pressing and holding down a button, you can make all your water gather together, which opens up all sorts of platforming possibilities. What’s more, holding down the button long enough will make the ball of water explode in all directions, useful to reach certain places and knocking away obstacles.
Eventually, you will gain the ability to transform into a block of ice, and again, that new form will open new challenges and puzzles: you will be knocking down crumbling walls, using launch pads that will sent you flying at dizzying speeds, pressing down switches, and more things your liquid form couldn’t do. And at some point, you will gain the ability to become a cloud and fly freely through the levels, though you will not be able to push switches or move anything with more mass than a balloon.
There are several more abilities to gain for each of those states, but I don’t want to spoil them. All I will say is that you will be impressed by the variety and the versatility of your moves by the end. It was hard for me to even remember what the early gameplay was like, because I have been sliding and swinging and slingshotting my way through the game for a while, now.
There are over one hundred things to collect in the game, but the game is by no means a collectathon: each Rainbow Drop will have to be earned. You will have to solve puzzles that are at first simple, but become more and more complex as you progress. The puzzles will involve several steps and have you switching from state to state, yet they never feel like busywork. They never seem to repeat. They simply flow naturally: as you complete one step, the next one becomes obvious, until at the end you collect your reward. It feels rewarding every time, even if they are not the most challenging. That said, there are several real head-scratchers in there that I have no clue how to tackle, thankfully you don’t need them all to finish the game.
Fluidity has really taken me by surprise. There is no flash here, it is one of the most unassuming games I’ve ever played, with its calm music and simple visuals, but there is true depth to be found in it. It is also the lengthiest single player adventure I have played on Wiiware so far, with no padding. It does not recycle its own ideas over and over, and instead constantly reinvents itself.
@Zero Clearly not, but I think it probably should have. It rendered the game pretty much unplayable for me seeing how they have you doing actual skilled platforming in the game at some points.
@Guillaume I'll give the game another shot most likely and maybe my opinion will totally change after I get deeper into the game. I think part of it is that the stuff you mentioned in your review doesn't bother me. I don't mind when ideas get repeated if they're good ideas, or variations on good ideas. I don't even mind a certain amount of filler in games. What I can't abide is clunky motion controls, especially a game published by Nintendo and hailed as one of WiiWare's finest.
It should have what, brought the game down for more people? Why would you want other people to have a lesser experience just because you are? Personally I'm happy to find out that when I'm really down on some part of a game (like say, Skyward Sword's pointing mechanics, ew) that it's not bothering other people to the same extent. And I understand where you are coming from to some degree, because I'm still surprised that a lot of people actually seem to prefer the pointing in Skyward Sword, and most just don't seem to care one way or the other. But I'm not going to insist that everyone should be disliking the pointing more than they do (although I will insist that Nintendo should give options for either motion or IR pointing next time around, if indeed they use motion controls at all in the next Zelda.)
and doesn't have the same sort of precision or depth than, say, Lemmings
Depth I agree 100%, Lemmings is one of the deepest action puzzle games I have played. Precision though... I dunno man. It was way too easy to pick the wrong lemming, especially when you had a bunch of them packed into a little area. Many stages basically required you to try them multiple times until you just happened to click the right lemming in the midst of a group of lemmings. This was especially noticeable for building bridges, I'd end up accidentally building a bridge in the wrong direction way too many times.
Still one of the best games ever made. I remember sometime around the N64 era making a top 10 all-time favorite games list and Lemmings was on it. I gave it a 9.8 on the site here.
Actually I think Lemmings is a good example of how I was a more patient gamer back in the days. Well, a more patient person, for that matter.
Ah, never really played the PC games. A part of me knows that the SNES port was probably inferior in some ways, but I still loved it. Multiplayer was fun too (albeit very exploitable...)
@Simbabbad I never once claimed that anyone purposely hid anything from me about Fluidity. Now you're just making stuff up.
@Zero Do I have to spell everything out for you guys? The jumping controls clearly should have been made more of an issue. You say they were brought up when the game came out. Fine, that's great. I personally, if I had done any kind of review would have docked the game significantly more than what most people have done. I don't think a game with this big of a FLAW in its controls should be considered "WiiWare's finest". To me, it's laughable.
@WrathOfSamus777 But why should we all have made the controls more of a big deal when for the most part they don't bother us? You're basically asking for everyone to have the same issues that you do and when they don't, taking affront at it for some reason.
It's called a difference of opinion guys. Read my last posts really slowly, multiple times if need be, and maybe you'll get it. The controls were a big deal to me, and therefore any review that doesn't mention what to me are FLAWED controls, I'm going to disagree with. That's how differences of opinions work.
But you're saying the controls 'should have' been made a bigger deal by OTHER PEOPLE. Why should they have, when they clearly aren't a big deal to other people? No one is sitting there writing a review thinking "I wonder what things people could potentially be bothered by that don't bother me". You can't get peeved by the fact that you had an issue that many people didn't and they didn't call out that issue for you in advance.
Zero, you clearly have no point of reference as to what a difference of opinion is. Go look it up and get back to me.
And actually FYI, good game reviewers do exactly what you just described. They look for things that could potentially be a problem to people playing the game and point them out, even if they aren't a big issue to them personally.
And don't tell me what I can or cannot get peeved about, thanks.
As far as pointing out issues that might annoy people goes,
Review said:
(the only flaw in the controls: it doesn’t always seem to work when it should)
So apparently I didn't make it enough of an issue to you. Sorry? It didn't bother me that much. The problem paled in comparison with the game's accomplishments.
I don't know, it's very hard to put the finger on what your criticism of the game's reception is. You went from "Nintendo fans are too forgiving of Nintendo games' flaws" to "they should have made a bigger deal of this thing I have issue with" to "I never said those things" to "It's called a difference of opinion guys".
Well, pretty much every review I read did bring up the motion controlled jumping. It was definitely mentioned as a potential pitfall. What you want beyond that, I have no idea. You seem to want all of these reviewers to have taken that and then used it to not say it is one of the best WiiWare games, when to them (and most of us on Neg World who have played it) it definitely is one of the best WiiWare games. That is the difference of opinion you need to accept, that to most people the controls did not stop this game from being an awesome experience and one of the best WiiWare has to offer.
I'm really not sure exactly what you wanted the reviewers to do. To not say that this is one of the best WiiWare titles, even though they definitely felt it?
@Guillaume Well maybe you need to go back and re-read my posts again because I don't think what I'm saying is that hard to understand unless you just don't like what I have to say.
Actually, what I said is that I think the hardcore user base of any console has a tendency to gloss over faults of highly regarded exclusive games. And I think I've been very clear as to what my criticism of Fluidity's reception has been, which is that it is regarded as one of, if not THE, best games on WiiWare, which I take issue with.
@Zero Who said I wanted anything? I don't think Fluidity is a great game, which YOU GUYS seem to have a big problem with in the two threads I've talked about it. I think the game should have been scored lower collectively because of its controls. I think the controls are flawed period, which you guys seem to have a problem with. I'm not going to soft-peddle my opinion because you guys don't like it and because it doesn't conform to the majority of the Nintendo community or the NW community.
Nah I don't have any problem with you not thinking it is a great game, my 'problem' is when you think the collective review community should have all scored a game lower for something that clearly didn't bother them. I just don't follow that line of reasoning.
But ultimately you're right in that you can feel however you feel. So, that's that.
Because it did bother me and if I had reviewed it, I would have scored the game significantly lower. So naturally I'm going to feel that the game should have been scored lower collectively because of it when a core mechanic of the game is clunky and could have been done much better with a little thought put into it. This really isn't that difficult, unless of course one just has a really hard time with others opinions that don't conform to theirs.
Do you not realize the irony of what you're saying though? You're talking about people having a hard time with other's opinions that don't conform to theirs, while at the same time thinking reviewers should be collectively conforming to your view.
How do you honestly not see the issue here? Why on Earth should reviewers all be conforming to your viewpoint?
