For some reason, when I start this review, I think of a line from the movie Mad Max: Fury Road. When the movie’s villains try to capture the heroes, one of his “loyal subjects” genuinely tries to kill them, but fails badly before reaching them. The villain yells “It’s mediocre!” And abandon this “faithful subject”. You may be wondering why I bring this up for a review of a game about dogs going to space. Much like that scene in the movie, there’s a genuine effort to reach the goal, but it ultimately fails before it can really begin. Like the villain in that movie, there was a moment when I was playing this game and I even said out loud, “It’s mediocre.” Sadly, that perfectly describes my experience with Space Tail: Every Journey Leads Home. Not a bad game, not a good game. It’s just painfully banal.
Space Tail: Every Journey Leads Home begins strong with the story of a lonely dog named Bea, who one day is adopted. However, her new owner eventually trains Bea to go to space. Adopted from solitude but brought back to solitude again. The whole game presents this interesting perspective through the eyes of a dog going to space. It’s intriguing. Ultimately, the story doesn’t go far beyond its simple premise, but it occasionally reminds us of interesting premises that the story might follow.
There’s also an interesting art style seen in Space Tail. The art direction choices make it a very nice game and make the whole world stand out. This is true of the characters, aliens, and environments you face throughout your adventure. For example, choosing to show humans as simple silhouettes, this is a really striking art choice. The rest of the game features environments with eye-popping colors and impressive designs. It’s really hard to explain in words, but I encourage you to take a look at the included screenshots to see what I mean.
Unfortunately, Space Tail’s praise ends here. Space Tail falls into the worst category a game can fall into. hauntingly mediocre. It starts off strong with a story, but almost every other aspect of Space Tail fails, leaving the whole experience feeling dragged on.
For example, consider that gameplay. you play as a dog. In other words, the gameplay mechanics are centered around what dogs can do. Hearing, sight, and a good sense of smell are gameplay mechanics. Sadly, these gameplay mechanics are used regularly, but it’s easy to forget to use them because they aren’t great mechanics to begin with. Smelling the environment might help you discover something sooner, but you end up discovering the same object without using the scent mechanism. The same is true of how hearing and vision work.
Or take another major mechanic of the game: communicating with aliens. Bea is not a fighting dog. So much of what you do with aliens in this game involves passive behavior. To communicate with the aliens, you must choose from a series of actions that allow you to bark, jump, and wag your tail. Each alien requires a specific reaction to figure out a completely random action. Basically select an option with the action wheel and if it doesn’t work try the next he six. There’s little logic behind why that reaction works and the same reaction doesn’t work for the next alien. Given that this game is quite a few hours long, this annoyance grows as you continue your adventure.
Finally, there is platforming. Space Tail is, after all, a platforming game, and that’s the main mode of transportation. It can jump, crawl, bark, and squeeze through tight spaces. The problem is that the jumps feel incredibly junky and inaccurate. Those are two things you literally don’t want in a game whose gameplay is focused on platforming. There weren’t many platforming sections that were accurate, but those that required accuracy laughably didn’t work. It was a matter of luck. It’s a fundamentally broken mechanic that, while you can get through the game, robs you of most of the fun when you’re battling controls.
Ultimately, Space Tail comes across as hauntingly mediocre. While its art direction and strong story start seem to lead to potentially great adventures, the game mechanics it uses are either fundamentally broken or just plain boring. This drags out the whole experience and makes it less enjoyable. This is the game I played for the sake of this review and in the end I will never go back. There are plenty of better games on Nintendo Switch for you to check out.
