#puffballsunited

Transcript under Keep Reading

10 YEARS ALREADY?

We're so old😔

I did not play the first game in this series. I chiefly played the second, Escaping the Prison, and I was enthralled by the humor and the slapstick of the situations. We'll get into my thoughts on all the games as a whole, but that game, I think, holds a special place in my heart.

It did mean I wasn't too keen on the collection when it was released; not hateful, just apathetic. A friend of mine owns it, and through our Steam family plan I was able to play it all the way through.

First off let me tell you: the achievements in these games are something else, and there's also a fun mechanic of Bios; when you see a character besides Henry, you can right-click on them to see their bio, and get a short read on what they're like. It makes for some excellent replay-ability to see the in-jokes and puns Innersloth came up with, although some characters are dreadfully tedious and require a walkthrough to acquire, which is also what I did to get every achievement. Personally, I think maybe the game should be played first ignoring bios and achievements, except where your heart guides you, and just have fun.

The core mechanic is failure. Yes there are many occasions where you can succeed, but more often than not it's more fun to see which situations are losses and which are wins, a constant battle between Puffball and me to find the actual way through and avoid it like the plague.

There's also a map of all the decisions, branching occasionally but mostly just showing scenes and a tally of the failures you've found for that given path. I think this is to the good; it allowed me to constantly step back and find the failure paths I had missed, plus it made finding specific spots for achievements a cinch.

I do wish there had been some way to skip or pause cut-scenes, or at least skip through them when you've found the thing you need, because more often than not you have to play the whole thing to get through it. This got worse when I missed something and had to scrub through a few times.

There's also some parts of it that haven't aged well. Not a lot, but there's some notable bits of body-shaming in the game, mostly name-calling. I didn't enjoy seeing them, though I do appreciate the willingness to keep those moment in the game for the sake of preserving the art.

But overall, I had a fun time with these games. I wouldn't call them masterpieces, just good fun, and I can see why they have such an enduring legacy. Now for quick, individual reviews!

Breaking the Bank

Henry tries to break into a bank. It goes badly.

This is the first game and it's bare-bones. You can beat it so fast and be done. As a proof of concept, it's fine, but it's really clear the next game is where Puffball started getting ideas.

Escaping the Prison

Henry tries to escape from prison.

I'm slightly blinded by nostalgia on this one, but even still there's a charm to it. The branching paths in this one are excellent, and result in a number of endings that are quite different from one another.

I think it's also the best balance between a pure Henry Stickmin game and the branching path mechanic. Stealing the Diamond (we'll get to it) is the last pure Henry Stickmin game, after which they started developing lore and characters. We'll get into that.

Stealing the Diamond

Henry seeks out a diamond to steal.

It's good. Not as good as Escaping the Prison, because Puffball really started getting wild with the lore and cut-scenes in this game, so the branching narrative doesn't branch quite as hard. I don't think either element really works as well here; there's a lack of commitment to either that prevents it from really popping.

Infiltrating the Airship

Henry, as a boxed crook, attempts to... well, you know. But he's also got his own agenda; can he lock in, or will he flip out?

My jaw dropped when I saw the first decision. The fact that all four of the things you can try will work and result in different paths was an incredible decision, and I think in this case the restricted area really leads to some creative pathing. And there's multiple endings which are accounted for later!

I think this is best of the lore-driven Henry Stickmin games. The pure slapstick isn't as present anymore, but in exchange we get characters and players bouncing off one another in pursuit of their own goals. The remaining two games are great, but the series peaked here.

Fleeing the Complex

Henry escapes from a second, larger prison.

I like this one a lot. The setting is really endearing to me, and though it lacks some of the sillier elements from previous entries, it manages to mix them in with the plot so they pop more. I don't think the overall failures are as interesting as before, but there's some twists on established formulas that threw me for a loop here. I appreciated that Puffball kept trying to try new things without always referencing the old.

Completing the Mission

Henry... well, that's a neat question, isn't it?

Depending on which endings you pick from Infiltrating the Airship and Escaping the Complex, you get a new linear story that plays out. There are sixteen endings in total, two being part of the same branching path, and all of them feel like they categorize and play out the Henry Stickmin lore properly for each given version of the character.

This one's a lot of fun, and maybe it's the recency bias, but I think it's my favorite. This is despite the fact that this game lacks a lot of the branching paths that were fun to explore in previous games, but as epilogues to paths in said previous games, I think the linearity could be forgiven.

This is also the game where the gimmicks of each failure start to wear out. Granted, there's 164 unique fails in all, which cannot be an easy task to parse out, but I think it's the game that convinced me the Henry Stickmin series had to end.

A long tale always has a beginning

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~~~~~~~~~~ I started a new Shadows over Loathing game and made a Henry Stickmin character. He’s a cheese wizard and has a psychogeology minor.