The Henry Stickmin Collection Review: Success and Failure
A wonderfully funny and fun choose your own path, though not much replay value
The Henry Stickmin Collection is a collection of 6 point and click games, following the character Henry trying to accomplish some kind of goal. Stealing the Diamond, Escaping the Prison, so on and so forth. I remember playing these games on Newgrounds back in grade school. The gameplay was incredibly simple but it was wonderfully hilarious. I always looked foward to new releases. But than, no games came out for a while. I thought Fleeing the Complex was the last game, but a few years later, Puffballs United (the creator of the Henry games) announces a full collection of all the games remastered, PLUS a new one. I didn’t know about said collection until a few weeks before it released. I was undoubtedly hyped for the few weeks to pass and bought it day one. What do you know? It’s good!
Gameplay is incredibly simple in this game, making it a perfect game for casuals. It simply relies on you picking which option you desire, some failing and one being the right one. The remastered versions of the game and the new game Completing the Mission look great visually! Although they are stickmin, the creator put in as much detail as they could with rich colors and fun references. They completely throw the old ones out of the water and almost make it worth it to replay the old ones. However, keep in mind only the backgrounds and sounds have been changed, not the character art.( Although, the remaster for breaking the bank was built from the ground up!) The remasters aren’t really what most people will buy this for though, but rather for the new game Completing the Mission. Completing the Mission is set with 16 endings and more than 100 unique fails! The new game is a wonderful conclusion to these games. Following the story of Henry either trying to join the toppat clan, steal the rocket, help the government capture the toppat clan etc. It is THAT big! The ending you get depends on the ending you get in the previous games. I really enjoyed playing through the all the games. But, theres even more than that!
There are these thing called bios, which you earn by right clicking a character. These bios give a short, witty description of the characters! The concept of the bios are fun, but getting the bios are a bit of a drag. Of course, I still enjoyed this game greatly, but getting the bios were a little difficult. Especially when some characters only appear on screen for a few seconds or even less! These bios forced me to watch scenes i’ve seen over and over, just to get them. That brings me to my next point. This game is hardly replayable. Sure, the gameplay makes it simple to enjoy and play through, but that makes it really hard to enjoy on a second playthrough. Once you’ve seen the outcome of one option, you’ve seen all there is to that outcome. There is an option to wipe data, but this game doesn’t seem like the type of game I’d like to play over and over. I’ve gotten all the achievements in the game and I overall feel fulfilled by my play-through. I might go back to play it again, but theres really no point. Still, that doesn’t this game isn’t good!
The Henry Stickmin Collection provided me with laughter, tears and frustration. I enjoyed this game and it is definitely a fitting game for this quarantine situation. The humor is funny, the action scenes are surprisingly engaging, the game is simple but great, the characters are fun and the story is oddly compelling. Replay value is not high, but fun value is definitely high.
Final Score: 7/10
PROS- Great visuals, Fun humor, Simple Gameplay, Tons of extra goodies
CONS- Bios are annoying, Not much replay value
Buy The Henry Stickmin Collection on Steam
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1089980/The_Henry_Stickmin_Collection/