Mail Mole + 'Xpress Deliveries Reviews

The main issue with this game is that the most basic and fundamental mechanic of any platformer (the jump) directly conflicts with the mechanic that makes this game unique (the dash). There are two jump heights: a very short jump that is really only helpful for traversing nearby platforms of equal (or [i]very[/i] slightly higher) height and chaining dashes, and a high jump. Because jump height can't be fine tuned, some platforms are too high for a short jump but much shorter than a high jump, resulting in lots of time spent waiting to land on them. The main issue, however, is that unlike many platformers where the jump occurs as soon as you input it and its height is determined by how long the jump button is held, in Mail Mole, jump height is completely determined before the jump occurs. That is, you must charge up the high jump [b]while grounded[/b] you cannot prep it midair) by holding the jump button for about a quarter of a second. The flaws in this mechanic really show when paired with the game's admittedly fun dash mechanic. After landing, pressing the dash button will give the player a boost of speed [b]that cannot be canceled[/b]. This means that for basically any platforming requiring precision, there is not enough time to both dash and charge a jump before moving to the next platform. Because of this, I ended up just taking those jumps very slowly, which completely ruined the fun and pacing of the game. One [i]could[/i] make a tight circle during the dash in order to buy time to prep the jump, however this is difficult to control and is likely to throw off the alignment of the jump, which is particularly problematic given how little air control there is. Furthermore, colliding with small objects on the ground can initiate a short jump, which on at least one occasion sent me careening to my death. All of this made the game feel clunky and frustrating. Although the jump is the main offender, the game is not without other flaws: -Dash window is too large (there were many times where I accidentally initiated a dash when I was just trying to move faster (the "run" button is the same as the dash button)) -No screen summarizing progress across all stages -No option to turn off voices or even sound effects in general (I found the player character’s sounds to be repetitive and extremely annoying) -Unskippable cutscenes make gold medal attempts more onerous than they have to be. -The [spoiler]mechamole races, especially the “hard” tier,[/spoiler] feel unnecessary since there is no interaction with the opponents and take place on levels that are part of the main game and that already have medal times and leaderboards. The only difference I saw is that paths forward are already unlocked. The autoscroller levels of the game were actually somewhat fun, albeit easy, but a platformer’s high point being autoscrollers is telling.