Platform: PC, PS4
Release Date: May 31, 2019
Publisher: Squanch Games
Developer: Squanch Games
Disclaimer – The review copy was provided by the developer, Squanch Games.
Trover Saves the Universe is the newest of co-creator for Rick and Morty, Justin Roiland’s creations alongside Squanch Games. It’s a comedy-adventure where you play as a chair-bound alien who has to control a silly eye-hole monster who doesn’t like to work. So using your wits of playing a game, you have to save your two dogs and help Trover save the universe. The game can be played both in VR and normally with a controller, but this time we have a PlayStation 4 copy now we’ll show you what you really need to know about Trover Saves the Universe.
As a story written and almost entirely voiced by Justin Roiland, you have to first make your judgements there. If you like Rick and Morty or even Accounting +, this game’s humor may be for you, if not then you may simply want to stay away from this game because 90% of it is all about that droning, improv, crass humor. With that being said, as a fan of Squanch Games and Roiland’s work, the game’s story is pretty funny and is all-around enjoyable.
As said before, you play as a chair-bound Chairorpian who got his dogs kidnapped by a weird chicken guy named Glorkon who inserted them into his eyes and gained ultimate power, or something like that. The town hates you, your dogs are gone and your apartment’s rent is due. So after moping around in your apartment for a while, a weird guy named Trover with two power babies in his eyes barges in and needs you to come with him on an adventure to stop Glorkon from destroying the universe.
For the most part, you’ll be following Trover around several different planets while encountering several new faces, that will either appall or crack a smile on your face. The characters range from an annoying naked guy, an angry green boss, and angry neighbors. Of course you get to deal with these guys however you want as many of the outcomes are just played for laughs, so you never have to really stress out about anything. Well except saving the Universe.
Since you’re playing a the Chairorpian who stares at Trover the whole game. The most that you can do is basically look around, interact with objects that are close to you, and nod your head.
This is where Trover comes in. You take control of Trover using your chair controller, so it’s like watching a guy play with a controller while you control him using a controller. It’s confusing, but the gameplay is overall simple. You move Trover around while you act as a sort of first-person camera. You basically have to look around and control Trover from different angles in order to progress and solve puzzles. This can be done with the pop-up ability you get early on to move higher into the air to get a better sense of direction and collect the Green Power Babies you’ll need to get Trover more health. You can also help Trover more by throwing far away objects at the enemies you fight, who ignore you for unknown reasons.
Controlling Trover himself is the most basic thing about the game, he jumps, rolls, attacks, you name it. He has to stand on the chair nodes in order for the player move his camera near Trover, also he can’t get too far away from you, so you have to abide by the VR playstyle. The combat is very simple, aside from changing perspectives with the Chairorpian, you control Trover with some basic jumping and attacking which is good for most of the platforming and fighting around. The enemies you fight only kind of vary, whether dealing with random planetary creatures, or fighting Glorkon’s clones. Fighting most creatures just involves you to simply, hit them while fighting the clones gives you a small bit of variation.
The clones themselves don’t vary too much except in color. You get the usual melee guys, the projectile guys, and big armor guys. While the normal Glorkons take just a bunch of hits to kill with minimal effort, the big ones require a bit more timing, or need a proper bug thrown at them. The bosses don’t exactly shine in combat too much either as they usually result in fighting a gauntlet of clones, which gets a bit tedious after a while.
The graphics are very cartoony and nice. The first world has popping bright colors in a forest area while another is also bright and full of mushrooms creatures near a castle. Think of the level design to be something between Super Mario Oddyssey but more pastel-like. Then there’s Flesh world. While it’s pretty gross, I feel that it’s one of the more unique and twisted worlds that Trover brought us to. Otherwise you’ll forget half of the locations.
Luckily the designs of the characters inhabiting the worlds are both unique and bizarre when combined with their personalities. Like how Mr. Popup is a gross floating naked guy, and Doopy Dooper is just an average annoying alien who wants you to move his stuff. It’s full of that bizarre charm Roiland puts into his designs and that’s pretty much worth it in-game.
The music and sound design in the game is pretty much average. Aside from the zany and interesting dialogue you’ll hear from Trover for 99% of the game, the music is simply not too crazy in fact it’s mostly relaxing but not something you can brag about. The levels themselves do have a lot of personality and music does indeed add to the world, but it’s just not very memorable.
Also regarding the dialogue, Trover talks a lot, whether it’s cracking a joke or complaining about where you’ll take him, he’s talking. Since your sense of humor is mostly dependent on Trover, it’s pretty important to try to hear what he has to say. Unfortunately, there are parts of the game where the dialogue just overlaps himself, completely ruining a punchline and also making the adventure a tiny bit awkward. Fortunately missing any actual important information in this game is pretty hard as they tell you to your face what you need to know. The overlap mostly only happens when fighting enemies or grabbing a power baby while talking to someone.
Trover Saves the Universe is a unique game with quite a bit of jokes thrown your way. Trover himself is pretty funny and so is the world around him, unfortunately the gameplay itself is a bit generic unless you have VR. Otherwise the game is an enjoyable if not short adventure with a lot of heart.
I give Trover Saves the Universe, a 7. The game itself is something special if you’re a fan of Justin Roiland’s work. The characters are very interesting to meet and it’s almost like we’re meeting these weird characters face to face. The gameplay seems a bit too basic however and the added puzzles don’t help that. Hopefully with the game’s fairly low price point and future free DLC, people who enjoyed the game can expect at least a few more adventures featuring a Chairorpian and a Purple eye-hole monster.
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