Well Dweller Review

Well Dweller makes me look back on a long, storied career of playing games like it… all the way back to 1994, when I played Super Metroid.

Yeah, you know where this is going.

Back then then the genre was still pretty nascent. Even with the original Metroid and Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest establishing long-running trends, we had no idea what we would eventually get ourselves into. Find a thing to help us get to that place we couldn’t get to before. That power earned five hours into the journey can now help you get into that door from minute five that holds a simple upgrade that was scratching at your brain the whole time.

And in my recollection, I thought back to last year when I played ENDER MAGNOLIA: Bloom in the Mist. In my review I wrote the following:

“Ascribing narrative and mechanical progression to a revolving door of new abilities is old hat at this point. The foundational classics that begot the genre have been iterated upon hundreds of times. Why then, are they so attractive, regardless of their seemingly repetitive nature?

ENDER MAGNOLIA is by no means a revolutionary Metroidvania. It won’t convince droves of players exhausted by action platforming and piecing out their sense of direction. In the past several years I’ve dived into a number of games in the genre. But I also find them to be relatively enjoyable, especially when providing me with something unexpected. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is an undeniable high watermark for the genre, incorporating complex, fluid platforming with challenging and worthwhile progression. Then there are games like Mars 2120 that come from a deep love and appreciation but fall short in scope and execution.

Unsurprisingly, a great game is simply that. Mimicry is a cheap path towards greatness but an inability to differentiate will always leave the better taste of a classic in your mouth. ENDER MAGNOLIA is undoubtedly recognizable. Not only because it echoes the accomplishments of ENDER LILIES but because it strives to iterate like the hundreds before it. But thankfully, that well-tread path bears the fruit of an incredibly polished, moody, challenging, and entertaining Metroidvania.”

When I wrote about ENDER MAGNOLIA, I couldn’t help but reflect on how much I enjoyed the game. But that enjoyment was also clashing with an overt familiarity. I was playing an extremely good and solid game, one I would recommend to fans of the genre and newcomers alike. Yet it wasn’t doing anything truly unique, especially when compared to its predecessor.

To me Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, as I mentioned last year, was phenomenal. That game’s emphasis on movement and traversal placed it in the upper echelons of the genre. Last year, Shinobi: Art of Vengeance blew me away for being visually stunning and magnetically kinetic. Whereas Shadow Labyrinth was merely average, delivering ham-fisted traversal and combat.

Where one game can soar, another can hopelessly flounder.

The question then becomes, how thirsty are you? How do you consume and enjoy your games? Do you voraciously seek out a particular genre? Do you judge the book by its cover and watch a trailer knowing whether a game is probably for you or not?

I know a game like Well Dweller is for me. Many games are. I’m hungry like that, craving a dearth of knowledge and experience across the vast swath of the medium. And I also see Well Dweller for what it is.

In no way is Well Dweller bad, mediocre, or a masterpiece. In fact, I don’t think Well Dweller is merely “good” by whatever calculus you wish to determine that with. But this is all to say Well Dweller very much reminds me of ENDER MAGNOLIA. It deeply understands what makes a Metroidvania click, how to use real estate so the player craves a new ability to return and gobble up any missing leads.

Yet when it is all said and done, I have, in essence, played Well Dweller before. It cloaks itself in its own visual style. It is not a carbon copy of another game. Despite this overt familiarity, it is comforting, engaging, and fun. And in totality, it is one of the better Metroidvanias you may play merely because there is a passion and a knowledge here that one can easily appreciate.

Set against the backdrop of a fairytale land, the player controls Glimmer, a young bird seeking out his captured family. In this land, an evil Queen–who has seemingly been rotten since childhood–has been methodically seeking out the birds of the land, killing them and plucking their feathers for a gown. Glimmer’s four siblings and mother have been taken and he traverses the world in hopes of rescuing them and eventually defeating the Queen whose corrupt influence has turned everything sour.

Well Dweller‘s art direction is decidedly storybook-like. Much of it feels like living illustrations moving across the screen. Many characters are cute animals with cheery personalities despite the horrors inflicted upon them. Regardless of the grim nature of the tale, the game never feels too serious, often making light of burning witches and kidnapped children.

But this beauty and wonder is also in stark contrast to a number of horrifying creatures, bosses, and encounters. Honestly, there’s some freakish character work here, especially when it comes to humanoid figures in the game. It’s very much the clash of a Disney film with the fables and Brothers Grimm that inspired those colorful, classic cartoons where everything worked out in the end.

Solo developer Kyle Thompson possesses a massive amount of talent and proficiency, Well Dweller being his fourth game. His distinct style is stretched to the brink here as the game’s map is a sprawling venture of hidden paths and side activities. Players will encounter blisteringly tough timed obstacle courses, combat challenges, and countless opportunities to revisit old locations. What I initially thought would be a pint-sized adventure became a relatively bulky undertaking.

That doesn’t mean Well Dweller is a slog, with a 100 percent completion likely 12 hours at most. Receiving the ability to fast travel between rest points early in the game certainly helps trim a lot of unnecessary trekking, as well. Perhaps one of the most unique things about the game’s traversal is that players use Glimmer’s weapon–a matchstick–as a kind of springboard. At the game’s onset, players can only fire it when standing on solid ground. The matchstick plants itself on a wall and allows Glimmer to bounce higher, usually over a tall wall. Over the course of the game, Glimmer earns the ability to clamber up walls, hover over short distances, and glide on powerful streams of air.

The combination of all these movement mechanics are used to navigate new areas, uncover secrets, and fight bosses. Across the game, players will use all of these abilities in tandem to overcome increasingly challenging moments.

A number of times when playing Well Dweller I thought a particular puzzle or moment was especially fun or clever. But not often did I find myself floored, encountering something profoundly weird or different. Players are going to come across numerous large gaps that will require a combination of timed hovering and careful platforming. Amusing little quirks such as a bubble that shoots Glimmer like Donkey Kong out of a barrel are used for speed and sharp turns.

It’s fun, it really is. Thompson created a world of wonder, not one of constant friction. Certainly I got lost a couple times wondering if I was missing a signpost or two but markers can be placed on the map should players want to make note of a location they might want to revisit later. Well Dweller has a few moments where I was unsure if the platforming could have been tighter, or if I was merely whiffing jumps and wall climbs. Anyone who fails jumping sections is likely going to get frustrated–and I certainly did–but for me, combat grew significantly stale after a point.

For some context, I spent the first half of the game playing on Hard difficulty, I often do. This resulted in nearly every enemy hitting hard, usually three or four hits until death. As a cute spin on the healing mechanic, players must hold down the button to heal and release it when a needle hovers over the right segment. Though it can be tense timing during fights, healing does temporarily boost damage as Glimmer is literally relighting his matchstick.

Eventually I did dial down the difficulty to Normal. And I’ve got to say, I didn’t notice too much of a difference initially. Instead, it brought to light one of my biggest pain points with Well Dweller: its combat is relatively one-note.

Glimmer’s primary means of attack is the matchstick and with it comes a basic swatting attack. Players also have the ability to lob a kind of grenade that can be hit with the matchstick to send it flying hard and fast in a direction, with subsequent attacks charging up the ability to lob another one. The game is so reliant on this constant melee attack that it colors almost all my memory of the combat. Flying enemies are harder to hit until they move in. A few enemies encircle themselves with damaging auras and the range of the matchstick isn’t enough to pierce those defenses. Patience is often one of the biggest mechanics to safely navigate an encounter.

Additionally, there’s a general lack of feeling like Glimmer grows in power. Trinkets exist that can augment damage or add special effects but players need to find trinket slots before they can equip more than two or three basic ones. Currency earned from killing enemies or as rewards can be used to make purchases in the shop but can also be used to purchase reveals on the map. It’s a pretty basic balancing act but even when I upgraded a trinket to do “moderate” damage instead of “slight” it still felt like enemies took the same amount of hits to die.

The normal enemies scattered around the world are visually interesting but their attacks usually become a game of outright avoidance or using agility to move through or over them. A handy dodge makes Glimmer invincible for several frames and is key to fending off a lot of damage. If it wasn’t because I wanted to earn new trinkets and slots, though, I would have avoided a lot of enemies… and eventually I did, especially when backtracking.

Bosses are an entirely different matter. These large and often gruesome foes cover the screen and reek with intimidation. Yet they all kind of follow a similar pattern. Many of Well Dweller‘s bosses have a tendency to spew out projectiles that beg for a placement in a bullet hell game. One boss had rocks that would bounce multiple times on the ground before breaking up. Another spewed large projectiles that then splintered into smaller ones. Boss attack phases also repeat in the same order, which does make them easy to memorize. Apparently when playing on Hard, bosses will summon more enemies and projectiles to pummel Glimmer.

While some bosses do have attack phases that require acrobatic skill and application of movement tech, it’s still very much a matter of mashing the attack button until their health goes away. This kind of no-frills approach to combat makes Well Dweller easy to grasp from start to finish but also keeps the game from evolving too much.

Though my criticism of Well Dweller‘s combat does feel damning, it truly doesn’t bring the game down in a way that harms it too much. It’s okay that the fighting isn’t entirely special because it still feels pretty good and responsive. Simply put, the game might have buckled under complex mechanics and by staying in this lane, Thompson’s restraint benefits the sum. The world’s vibes carry a lot of weight and the generous exploration that doesn’t grow exhausting means that players will be in and out before the journey is too laborious.

Well Dweller does not wholly transform the Metroidvania genre. It undeniably features a deliciously rendered storybook world with a grim underbelly. However, some basic combat also makes it apparent that there are places where the game could have felt significantly more special. This genre is a hard nut to crack and with so many entrants year after year, it becomes increasingly challenging to differentiate from the pack. But in many ways, Kyle Thompson succeeded. And as this talented solo developer’s journey continues, I’m sure all the lessons learned will deliver something truly different and masterful.