Ben 10 Review – A One-Man Cartoon Army of Nostalgia

<p><em>Ben 10<&sol;em> was a major part of my childhood&period; It was one of the first experiences I had with connected continuity in TV shows&period; Then they expanded the universe with <em>Alien Force<&sol;em> and <em>Ultimate Alien<&sol;em>&period; Both offered a relatively more mature storyline while keeping the spark of the original season&period; We then got <em>Omniverse<&sol;em> which I missed&comma; and now we&&num;8217&semi;re in the age of reboots&period;  I can tell you now&comma; the spark is still there&comma; just buried under a layer of mediocrity&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>We’ll start with the positives&period; Anyone who did watch the original series will be pleased to hear the original voice actor for Ben return with a voice which is always on the verge of getting annoying but never quite does&period; I was also really pleased with the rest of the cast&comma; especially Zombozo&period; He was so much like The Joker that I had to check it wasn’t Mark Hamill&period; The cutscenes are well animated and full of bright colour and life&comma; helping to push the story on&period; One problem is the detail on the faces of people seems a bit odd&comma; with only a couple of lines defining facial features such as noses&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;132268" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-132268" style&equals;"width&colon; 1000px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"wp-image-132268 size-large" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2017&sol;12&sol;04083241&sol;Ben-10-1-1024x576&period;jpg" alt&equals;"Ben 10 1" width&equals;"1000" height&equals;"563" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-132268" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;<em>Ben 10<&sol;em>&comma; Outright Games&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>The humour is intact in the transition from TV to video game&comma; with puns galore&period; So&period; Many&period; Puns&period; You’ll laugh once&comma; smile another time and then quickly become sick of the repeated puns from the aliens in the levels&period; Thankfully&comma; there’s also plenty of visual comedy from the Ultimate Abilities to Gwen being carried off&comma; looking bored&comma; by a giant bee&period; I never said it all makes sense&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Onto the combat now and it’s your typical button mashing gameplay&period; Keep pressing Y until the enemy starts a move and press X to counter&period; Sometimes press A to use your special move and press ZR once powered up &lpar;about once per level&rpar; to unleash your ultimate&period; It’s basic and it&&num;8217&semi;s not particularly inspired but it does the job&period; However&comma; I will give them credit for the different abilities &lpar;both A and ZR&rpar; for each hero&comma; giving them all a lot more variety&period; Some are more exciting than others&comma; with Grey Matter and XLR8’s being my personal favourites &lpar;a Zayra gravity orb and Neo slow-motion respectively&rpar; but they all help to break up the combat just enough to stop it going stale&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>To allow for replayability&comma; <em>Ben 10<&sol;em> includes another two stables in the &OpenCurlyQuote;licensed game’ area – person&sol;ability specific areas and collectibles&period; The collectibles come in the form of Sumo Cards&comma; in another nice nod to the series&period; Each hero can also be used to move into another&comma; previously unreachable area&period; While it helps to force you to play as other heroes&comma; it can be irritating to have to swap heroes just to move to another area and change straight back &lpar;the quick changes make it nowhere near as frustrating as it could be&rpar;&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;132269" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-132269" style&equals;"width&colon; 1000px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"wp-image-132269 size-large" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2017&sol;12&sol;04083332&sol;Ben-10-2-1024x576&period;jpg" alt&equals;"Ben 10 2" width&equals;"1000" height&equals;"563" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-132269" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;<em>Ben 10<&sol;em>&comma; Outright Games&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>Finally&comma; the graphics are fine&period; The game has a nice art style and lots of detail in the backgrounds&comma; although the aforementioned lack of face detail is a problem&period; Another problem is the framerate drops&period; So far&comma; I think they mainly happen when transferring from one square of the level to the next or with lots of enemies on screen&period; This is understandable&comma; but if <em>The Legend of Zelda&colon;<&sol;em> <em>Breath of the Wild<&sol;em> can run with little framerate issues then <em>Ben 10<&sol;em> should be able to cope&period; It just makes the game feel sluggish and slower than it is&period; Sadly&comma; it just highlights the quick development time of these tie in titles&comma; which could be so much better&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Overall&comma; <em>Ben 10<&sol;em> made me nostalgic for the original series and caught my attention for the reboot&period; The gameplay isn&&num;8217&semi;t particularly exciting but the humour and general feel of <em>Ben 10<&sol;em> is still present&period; Due to the portability of the Switch&comma; I&&num;8217&semi;m slightly more forgiving with the level design&period; It suits a bus ride or the wait for dinner period of the day&period; I can recommend this for kids or fans of the original but get it on a sale&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;