There’s a fair few VR platforming mascots that have come and gone, the likes of Astro Bot and Lucky graduating to broader flatscreen adventure, leaving a gap for new heroes to fill. Enter the quite adorable, yet inexplicably named Max Mustard. Can he make the cut?
The game begins with a large, tentacle-y alien robot kidnapping a bunch of adorable critters, called Mudpups. Just as it’s about to get its tentacles on you, Max Mustard turns up and scares it off, so you immediately team up with Mustard to fight off the alien’s various minions and save the Mudpups. By controlling Max with your robot-VR-controller hands. It’s a platformer, it doesn’t need to make perfect sense.
The platforming in Max Mustard is similar to that of his VR platforming predecessors. It’s essentially a classic platformer but rendered in a world that’s wrapped around you in 3D, so you can physically move your head to look around and follow the character through the world. There’s also more player interaction with the levels, whether it’s shooting guns with your actual hands, peeking around corners for hidden collectibles, that kind of thing.
You’ll accompany Max through four arcs, each of which has its own overworld map to work your way through, freeing Mudpups and collecting coins as you go. The platforming here is good, but not particularly notable. It does everything competently, but it doesn’t do anything particularly special. However, being a VR game does help make it more notable.
In addition to some of those coins and critters being hidden behind corners or other places that are easy to miss if you’re not careful, there’s also things like the plunger gun that you get very early on that turns a level into a platformer/shooting range at the same time, or the vacuum gun that allows you to suck enemies up and launch them at others.
There’s some nice touches without these specific tools as well, such as one area where two coins were definitely out of reach of Max, but I was pleasantly surprised when my random thought to just reach out and pick them up with my actual hand worked! The game also isn’t afraid to throw you off ledges mid-level either, or if you are foolish enough to pull the “Do not pull” cord in the van between levels, it shoots you through the roof for a bit before you fall all the way back down and land back where you started. Things like this just make me smile similarly to when it first handed me a plunger gun. It’s just fun!
It’s this combinations of VR and platforming where the game really shines, but there are a few great ideas sprinkled through the levels that don’t rely on it as well. One level was made of alternating platforms that changed every time I jumped, and another did something similar in time to the music – music that could be customised part way through the level with buttons to turn instruments on and off and it stayed that way for the remainder of the level. There’s also a few mini levels, such as shooting ranges for the plunger gun with some pretty tight time requirements to gain a Gold medal and a Mudpup as a prize, or the coin frenzy where you just jump Max through a stream of coins to try and collect as many as possible in a certain time. This latter one is particularly useful when it comes to buying upgrades, which you can do at an in-game shop and has a selection of upgrades for both Max and yourself. The first one was unlocking snap to turn, so you can turn your view with the controller instead of physically turning in real life – honestly quite ridiculous to have an accessibility or VR comfort feature locked behind a game upgrade – but then there’s also the spin attack for Max, faster move speed, an in-the-air dash attack, and so on.
It all looks pretty great, too. On PSVR2 it is crystal clear without a frame drop in sight, not even when you’re flying through the roof of your van suddenly. There’s plenty of details in the world and especially on Max, whose ponytail flutters about in their wake. The game’s aesthetic is pretty much what you expect for a platformer – it’s all bright a cutesy, even the enemies, and it doesn’t need to do anything more than that really. Most importantly, If you walk Max close to you they’ll look right at you and I challenge you not to say “aww” the first time it happens.
Throughout all this, Max handles almost exactly like Astro Bot, right down to jet boots which let Max float a bit in the air rather than double jump, except Max’s boots shoot flames rather than lasers. It’s clear that Astro Bot was a big influence here, but there’s more as well – there’s critters to rescue ala Sonic, you save them by breaking the under-sized cages they’re trapped in like Rayman, there’s bouncy crates with arrows pointing upwards similar to Crash Bandicoot, you choose what level to play via a overworld map with set routes like Mario, Basically, there’s a love for platformers and you see the breadcrumbs of that appreciation spread throughout the game.
This feeds into the only real problem with the game: it’s just kind of unremarkable. It plays well, it’s competently designed, it looks good, and gathers various ideas from other places and blends them into a game that is good and enjoyable enough, but it isn’t going to blow your mind either.
The only other negative really worth mentioning is that, when moving your head and moving Max at once, you tend to end up walking off in the wrong direction because it can be fiddly to judge the direction, as it changes based on your view. This is easy to adjust your playing style for, and only cost me three deaths.
