Battle Royale games have become increasingly popular with blockbuster titles like PUBG, Fortnite, and Fall Guys. As you may have guessed, Stumble Guys takes inspiration from the latter, and by inspiration, I mean it is an almost identical clone of Fall Guys. I was going to be very quick to write it off as such, before playing a few rounds to check it out. What’s It Like? Select your outfit, grab some gems, and prepare to fall… I mean, stumble, as we review Stumble Guys for the Nintendo Switch.
Let’s start off on the right foot by calling a spade a spade. Stumble Guys is a nearly identical clone of Fall Guys, in terms of gameplay, graphical style, level structure, and layout. I’m going to publish another video comparing the two games, but this review from here on will focus solely on Stumble Guys.
Stumble Guys is a battle royale game that pits you up against 31 other players in knockout rounds of varying courses and gameplay mechanics. Some rounds are as simple as reaching the end goal in order to qualify, others will see you have a bazooka to fight off other players and collect as many coins as you can. Levels could be divided into 3 types, Obstacle Courses, Elimination Rounds, and Slides. While sides and obstacle courses are fairly self-explanatory, elimination rounds see you placed in a more claustrophobic area dodging lasers and battle bots to stay on a platform. Each round sees you have to place a certain position to advance with the first round being in the top 16 places, the second round top 8, and the last round (usually an elimination round), which means you have to be the last guy standing. Levels are fairly interesting, but there are not too many of them at launch, meaning most rounds will usually feature a course you played in the last session.
While this sounds tedious, the rapid-fire nature of Stumble Guys means you’re in and out fairly quickly, rarely giving you time to twiddle your thumbs or get bored. Queue time is kept to a minimum, load times are fast, and rounds are usually over in minutes, letting you level up, unlock some new skins, and dive back in. Movement and traversal is fast and fun, although it can feel floaty, and getting stunned by objects can be frustrating, especially when you get caught on an obstacle that repeatedly stuns you, leaving other players to overtake you while you flounder uselessly on the course. The controls are simplistic, leaving jump and dive to one button, allowing you to leap and dive through obstacles with ease. It’s all rather forgiving, if fiddly, and probably a much friendlier introduction to Battle Royale games than the others…
There are limited-time events that allow you to earn special rewards and decent XP. One such event that is on at the time of writing this review is a “Slippery Slides” event, which is fast and fun and is basically like being at a waterpark… filled with dangerous obstacles and a pirate elimination round. These events usually offer huge XP boosts for those lucky enough to win them and advance their battle pass levels at a time, making the stakes to win so much higher than the standard game.
Graphically, Stumble Guys is fairly simple but allows for the performance to be smooth when running about obstacle courses. It’s bright and vibrant and has its own charms. Skins you can unlock are varied and humorous, and the overall style of the game is serviceable, while not really pushing the envelope in fidelity, most likely due to its heritage being a port of a mobile game. There are minor stutters on ending a level and loading a level which has no impact on gameplay, although it does feel like it could do with a little more polish. Then there’s the music, which is essentially 4 bars of carnival music on a loop that grates on you to the point I recommend turning it off completely. I did manage to hear another track at one stage, but the title theme seems to hog the limelight here playing ad nauseum.
For my Stumble Guys who may need additional accessibility options, there are no real additional settings to change, unfortunately. That being said, the colour palette is bright, and outside of the initial crowd, your character is easy to see as you can change their colour to suit your needs. Courses are fairly linear in style, despite there being no mini-map, and usually consist of running forward with bright obstacles and course boundaries. Controls are fairly simplistic, jump and dive are assigned to the same button and you use the control stick for movement, mean traversal is fairly forgiving and the gameplay mechanics (aside from some additional buttons in very specific levels) don’t require rapid movement. As always, I recommend further research into finding out if Stumble Guys is for you, and I also encourage gamers to let me know what things I can consider mentioning to help you make a more informed purchase when it comes to my reviews.
As it is a free-to-play title, we always have to ask “Just how free to play is Stumble Guys?” There are the standard monetization options here which all boil down to cosmetics. You unlock skins via a random wheel and the free battle pass offers many random spins for common or better skins, whereas the paid battle pass (which you can buy with a starter pack that costs $7.50 AUD) usually offers rare or above on spins. I always try to support developers of free-to-play games by purchasing the starter pack, and I feel like I got plenty of value for money in the paid battle pass, but I wouldn’t feel like I missed out if I didn’t. That nature of the spins means regardless of whether paid or free, you have the same skins in rotation. You can use gems for specific spin pools like “Cybernetic” skins and whatnot, but they are all cosmetic only. I will add something that I felt was unbalanced despite it being free to all players, and that’s the “Boxing” emote which is available for a limited time. Executing this emote allows you to punch players, knocking them over and stunning them. Admittedly, I used it a few times to win rounds, but it seems not all players know how it’s used giving players like me an unfair advantage.
I was ready to write off Stumble Guys as a cheap knockoff and not really give it the time of day, yet here I am 10 hours later with an almost maxed-out battle pass giggling and trying to win some more limited-time events. It may not be as refined nor have as much content as the other game, but it is a solid foundation that performs well on the Nintendo Switch. Here’s hoping that it is built upon, so gamers can enjoy the game long after the first season where many free-to-play titles *ahem* stumble.
So, What’s It Like? Stumble Guys is pretty much Fall Guys.
