Fall Guys, for all its game show charm, is not your typical party game. It certainly has that appeal but with the action being solely online, your interactions with other players with be via your headset as opposed to sharing a couch with your friends ala something like Mario Party. As you sprint, dash, or jump through a series of two dozen mini-games, your excitement and time will be joyful and yet chaotic, until you might tire of playing most of the same games over and over again, ad nauseam. Rest assured, Fall Guys can certainly be a fun time, and will be updated over time with new content, but how fast and how often remains to be seen.
Upon starting up the game, you’ll decorate your little capsule-shaped character, changing their patterns, colors, and costumes as you play games to earn currency to acquire more outfits and colors and patterns to dress them up in bird costumes, pirate outfits, or decked out to look like a pineapple. There are paid outfits, of course, as well as the ability to spend real money on the purple currency that you tend to unlock fairly quickly should you last long enough through the gauntlet of mini-games you’re taking part in. The game is bright, colorful, has cheery and addictive music, and gives the characters an almost minion’s charm as they run, bounce and almost Mario jump themselves like a collection of beach balls as they collide together and cause untold chaos in the process. Controls are rather simple as you can only run, jump, dive, or grab, which allows you to grab other players, or the crown in the Fall Mountain map.
Delivered to the PlayStation 4 in the same way Rocket League debuted, Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout is available to all PlayStation Plus subscribers during the month of August. This “free” access to the game did cause connection issues as the better part its launch day saw massive server problems to the point where the developer took the game offline for a few hours. Upon it coming back, it seemed to run pretty well for the remainder of the day. These server issues also plagued the Steam release as well, causing many who weren’t even to even play the game to review bomb it, which in typical fashion has continued to show that user reviews come with a cost, especially when there is no requirement to have even played the game to post such a critique. Thankfully, other players then came to the rescue and review bombed the title in reverse, putting the title back into the positive, but the problem at large still remains.
As for the game itself, its courses and design are bright, colorful, and feel like a sports event taking place in an oversized bouncy house. You’ll dive across platforms, outrace and dodge fruit being chucked at you, to memorizing fruit icons and placement, to snatching away tails from other players, all while attempting to outlast other players. Each match starts with 60 players who then have to push through the competition to move on to the next round. This means getting to the finish line before everyone else or outlasting other players as you attempt to not fall into the sticky slime that lurks below. Matches are usually done in minutes, and while there are two dozen events, many of them fall under certain criteria, so several maps, such as See Saw, Door Dash, and Roll Out are mini-games I see nearly every time I start up another round. While the game currently showcases 25 mini-games, it never truly feels that there are actually that many.
How the games work is they are classified under a few categories; Race, Survival, Team, and Final. Matches usually start off with a Race map, but out of the nine total maps in this category, you’ll likely have See Saw start things off each and every time. For example, out of the 20 rounds I kept track of, I had it start off with that map a total of 12 times. Most of the mini-games are incredibly fun, but some do tend to lose their charm fast after doing them far too much and way too often. Had some of these race maps been procedurally generated with a few twists added here and there, then we would be having a very different and much more positive discussion here.
While I won’t detail each and every map, I’ll talk about a few of the real standouts and a few that are a bit lacking. I’ve already mentioned See Saw, but this map sees you dashing across a collection of seesaws that tilt as you weight down one side and attempt to jump or dash across a sea of them, racing for the finish line. Door Dash may be a bit bland in its design, but there is just something so satisfying about seeing someone face-plant into one of the fake doors, while the rest of the group plows through each other to keep moving on. Slime Climb is a level that we need more of, as this ‘race to the top’ is backed with a flowing slime river that is closing in behind you. It’s easily the stand out level and is one of my favorites by a mile. Perfect Match has you playing a game of memory but is probably my least favorite of the whole lot. Jump Club is a jump and duck type of round where two rotating poles attempt to knock you off. It’s extremely fun as it has a jump rope appeal that I’d like more of.
Team games are where you’ll either have a blast working together with either your friends, or having no communication with random players as you attempt to bounce and dash a ball into a net, gather eggs and take them to your base, or work together to snatch tails off your opponents. Some of the standouts are Rock N’ Roll, where you’ll all work together to get a ball down the course, or Hoarders, which has the same mechanics, but you attempt to hoard a series of balls in your side before time runs out. Hoopsie Daisy, a match where you’ll try to jump and dive through hoops is one of my favorites in the team selection, but out of my 100+ rounds, I’ve played it maybe 6 or 7 times, which is wildly unfortunate. Lastly are the final rounds, where only one player will make it out alive. Fall Mountain sees you perform a mad dash to the top to snatch a crown, and watching people forget to press the grab button, is insanely hilarious as you watch them bounce off it to the track below. The problem with these final levels is there is only 3, so if you are not good at one of them, it limits how many more you’re able to get good at. That, and being the round-type that decides the winner, I feel like there should be more of this type to have that final stand really be something special. The remaining two are another variation of the snatch a tail game, and my favorite, Hex-A-Gone, where you’ll move around falling panels that are layered above each other and attempt to remain on them as the slime below welcomes those who fall. While I’ve had a few wins via Fall Mountain, my favorite win was during Hex-A-Gone, as I stayed alive on the second top-level, moving around until everyone fell to their doom.
Repetitive criticism aside, Fall Guys is still incredibly fun and joyful around almost every colorful corner, and with the inclusion of seasons that will update the game with new costumes and new maps, this is certainly a fun platform for improvement. The pudgy and yet agile characters are bursting with charm and seeing a mass rush of 60 of them trying to cram themselves through a tiny opening is hysterical and further illustrates the staying power you can find with the game. It’s certainly more fun playing with friends, even if it’s just online for now, but you can still have a solid romp as a solo player, provided your teammates actually work towards the goal when partnered up with a group. Fall Guys is a mixture of a variety of game shows and party mechanics that often nails what it needs to do, but more work is needed to keep the game fresh and enjoyable even after some 150 rounds deep.
Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout was downloaded off PlayStation Plus by the reviewer and played on a PlayStation 4 Pro.
All screenshots were taken on a PlayStation 4 Pro.