Funk of Titans | Xbox One

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You can’t help but shake the feeling that Funk of Titans was the result of a ‘What if’ conversation in the pub which went to far and actually turned into something people are expected to pay money for.

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by James Parry

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@james_parry

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Developer: A Crowd Of Monsters
Publisher: ID@XBOX
Players: 1

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Picture the scene: funk, which, as we all know, is the music of the gods, is being challenged by the likes of rock, pop and rap and only Perseus, son of Zeus, can defeat the Pagan music titans and save humanity. How you actually do this is a combination of platforming and QTEs, which (spoiler alert?) culminate in absolutely nothing noteworthy whatsoever.

As Perseus, you can either jump, attack, or - controversially - jump AND attack. While we wouldn’t confess to being platforming experts around here, taking the ability to move away from the player seems unnecessary. You might think it’s to introduce an element of difficulty to proceedings, but with no checkpoints mid-level, it generally only introduces frustration as you repeatedly fail at a certain section you know how to do.

Enemies are vulnerable to one of the three actions Perseus can do, essentially turning proceedings into a constantly moving version of rock, paper, scissors, and the levels seem to stubbornly refuse to progress like a four-year-old screaming in a supermarket.

Graphically, the cartoony style isn’t a challenge for the Xbox One, and the game is generally very well put together. A particular visual highlight is the levels which put the light source in the background and lead to a slightly Limbo-esque silhouette effect, but, sadly, this is a wasted opportunity as the gameplay remains unaffected by the change.

A Flappy Bird-inspired bonus level would already be enough to hammer the nail into the coffin, were it not for the painfully dull ‘boss battles’ which put you up against a trio of musical stereotypes who have scrambled out of the Guitar Hero rejects bin. The threesome will tax your thumbs with some of the most unimaginative use of button prompts ever seen as you supposedly face off on some sort of dance contest, but disappoint further by performing the same whether the player hits the buttons or not.

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levels seem to stubbornly refuse to progress like a four-year-old screaming in a supermarket.

In short, this game has ‘Future Games with Gold’ stamped proudly all across it, and unfortunately only builds the stereotype of what “an indie game” is. With Rayman Legends going free on Gold this month, it may be waiting a while for its time in the spotlight, but with such competition, and higher caliber from many other titles from ID@XBOX, it is unacceptable to not match the standards set by 2D platformers decades ago.

Pros

• One of the melee weapons is, effectively, a lightsaber
• Some decent uses of lighting effects
• Solidly put together

Cons

• Wrote the book on generic and then shredded it and stuck it back together to come up with this
• One note characters stray dangerously close to out-dated racial stereotypes
• More tempting to start a funk band than even considering playing through a second time

Score 1/10