Whipseey And The Lost Atlas Review

Whipseey and the Lost Atlas is the latest budget platformer to be released on the Switch. You play as a young boy, named Alex, who stumbles into a strange world and takes the form of the hero Whipseey. Now you must whip your way across the magical world to find the Lost Atlas and return back to your own world. The first thought most Nintendo fans will most likely have upon seeing this game is that it bears a very distinct similarity to the famous pink puff, but there’s more here than meets the eye.

While you might think this is just a simple Kirby clone, it actually plays completely different. Your main tool in this game is a whip, which you can use to smack around enemies, swing across gaps, or even spin around to safely glide onto the ground. Despite this versatility, the whip can only be thrown in front of you. Character movement is rather restricted with just walking, jumping, and whipping really being your move set. One of the bigger issues with mobility in this game is not being able to dash, as there are a ton of tight platforming segments where a dash would have really come in handy.

As you might expect from the low price point, Whipseey is a relatively short game, with there only being 5 levels. Luckily they’re filled to the brim with quality content. Each stage looks unique from one another, with each environment representing a certain theme for the gameplay. One level looks like a beach, so the it features plenty of underwater sections while another course is a land made out of toys where you even get to ride a model train. Keeping things fresh is the variety of enemies that are unique to each stage. There is one enemy in the game that appears in almost every level, but even then that enemy wears different outfits to match the theme of the level it’s in.

The levels in this game feel less inspired by Kirby, and more by Mega Man. Each harbors distinct backgrounds and enemy types that match and they’re all very lengthy, taking five to ten minutes to complete. Of course, that’s not factoring in the difficulty of the game. It can be very challenging, but in the most positive of ways. You have a very limited amount of lives per level, and getting 1-Ups is not an easy task. If you lose all of your lives then you’ll have to restart the entire level. This really makes you cautious against any enemy you face, and every gap you jump across. The cherry on top is the various bosses guarding the end of each level where defeating them actually feels super rewarding.

As far as the main game goes it excels at so much, but sadly it also has its fair share of issues. While the visuals of the game are great, the audio does tend to take you out of the moment. The music doesn’t really match the visuals of the levels and in some ways it almost sounds like stock music was used to fill in. The same can be said of the sound effects and menu screens, which sound equally generic. It’s actually jarring to go from the level select screen to the actual levels, as the bar of quality is set so distantly between the two. Had they spent a bit more time improving these aspects of the game, this game would have definitely been rated much higher.

While the game only has a few levels it offers around an hour of content, which is fine for a $6 game. After completion I couldn’t help but think they could have gone the extra mile and given us a New Game Plus or a Boss Rush Mode or something. There’s virtually no replay value here, so once you’ve tromped through each stage there’s little reason to revisit this one. The absence of secret collectibles or new paths to discover is a real bummer. Some might enjoy simply playing the same levels over again at some point, but some sort of incentive would have helped in this regard. That being said, I did enjoy my time with this one!

Jordan Brewer

Jordan is a gaming fanatic who grew up in a home of shovelware. Years of discounted drivel has molded this man, shaping him into the seeker of quality he is today.