Nobody Saves the World Xbox Series X Review

Nobody Saves the World starts strong with an imaginative world full of variety and lots of baddies to defeat. You'll explore various dungeons and defeat hordes of enemies in an attempt to save the world that classics the joy found in retro adventure games. However, Nobody Saves the World attempts to create that sense of exploration and dungeon crawling without much reward for doing it. Instead, much of the game focuses on grinding out tedious challenges to level up and collect lots of gems.

Nobody Saves the World's story is simple, you play as someone named Nobody who must locate a powerful wizard named Nostramagus. A calamity is taking over and you take Nostramagus' magic wand without much resistance outside from his student Randy, allowing you to transform into various people and creatures. After Randy is in dispose Nobody heads throughout the world to locate magical gems and uncover who you are while also attempting to stop the Calamity.

Nobody is weak and helpless but with the wand can transform into various beings. Each form has an expansive move list that eventually can be linked into the hot bar of any form you choose with the exception of the form's standard attack. You can swap forms in battle or pause and choose a form from the menu which is the better choice. This is because the game doesn't allow you to link specific forms to the character wheel and instead places them randomly depending on which forms you've been using. This obviously annoying as an option to choose your favorite forms with ease would've been infinitely better.

Nobody Saves the World doesn't have a traditional leveling system and instead focuses entirely on challenges with each form and progressing through the game. Each form has specific challenges that are provided as you complete them, with the first set maxing out at Rank B and the others becoming available during the last third of the game. The tasks are a grind as you perform duties such as killing enemies using specific attacks, removing certain shields, or using a specific ability for that form. The other meter is for Nobody's core stats and is leveled up separately from the forms. The other way to progress is to complete side missions, main story quests, and general tasks if purchased by the player through the vendor. These challenges also reward the player with Stars needed to unlock the doors for the main dungeons. This does ensure that the player cannot head into higher dungeons without getting ready first as higher-level enemies are immune to damage.

Unlocking new forms are linked to these challenges in the way of ranks. Each form has a rank and as you complete challenges the rank increases, with each job placed on a web chart. New forms are unlocked once the requirements for the forms linked to the other form are met. Some forms may require you to reach a certain rank of 2 or 3 forms so you cannot just pick 1 form and use it throughout. With the highest being Rank S that doesn't do anything other than showcasing the form in the chart with a special frame. It's pretty underwhelming and even a color change option would've been at least something.

There are 15 forms in total and while there are some traditional forms like a horde and a knight the developers did offer some creative forms. There's a zombie, a robot, a monstrous mermaid, and even a dragon to name a few. Playing as all of these forms is definitely a joy especially when you mix and match abilities. The developers took a lot of time to ensure that the sprites have unique animations for using attacks outside the form such as turtle using a bow and arrow.

This progression system feels like a giant errand especially when coupled with Nobody Saves the World's main gameplay feature dungeon crawling. Most of the game will focus on Nobody heading into randomly generated dungeons to take on waves of enemies as you attempt to locate the exit either by finding a staircase, killing a specific amount of enemies to unlock the gate, or finding keys to the gate. The dungeons themselves are great fun with hordes of enemies and the area resembling the surrounding area. They offer a decent challenge especially towards the end with handicaps being placed to hinder the player. This can range from increased damage, debuffs being more significant, and enemies with certain shields. The problem is the game has no real reward system.

Games like Diablo, Destiny and even Minecraft Dungeons provide incentives to encourage the players to come back to the same areas in the way of interesting loot. The only reward given to the player in Nobody Saves the World is money, which can be used to buy perks, increase your stats, buy stars, maps to other dungeons, and medals for improving skills. It's easier to make money in dungeons and medals drop on these enemies but seeing that completing every dungeon yields the same rewards that desire to complete the optional ones dwindle. Unless you're going for 100% there's really little reason to complete all of them especially since the rarest form, the Dragon, can be gained by finding egg nests in the overworld. Nobody Saves the World's is a dungeon crawler without the reward. The only real reason to go back to the same dungeon is to grind out more challenges, even cosmetics like color changes for Nobody's forms would've been welcomed. It doesn't help that the game plays the same music loop during all the dungeons to the point it becomes an annoyance. Some dungeons do end on a boss fight but most of these are against variants of the common NPCs you'll fight dozens of. 

The overworld of Nobody Saves the World is shockingly amazing. A lot of time went into designing these various landscapes and it shows. A lush diversity of environments perfectly complement the towns and the entrance of the various dungeons. There's only 1 vendor that sells things and he's everywhere so finding new supplies is nonexistent but there are plenty of optional missions in these areas. Some require you to head back into the dungeon and others have you performing certain tasks like taking advantage of a special dagger sale for the Thieves Guild.

Navigation isn't much of a problems thanks to fast travel points and the helpful map. Gold icons display missions and the details help you find the right path when trying to find somewhere specific. And thanks to the excellent art direction everything has a distinct look so you'll recognize the areas easily. The map is also amazingly decorated and should be complemented.

Despite the story being simple, the writing is amazing and the characters well designed. The beautiful visuals often complement the game's dark humor and comedic situations. Randy is one of the first characters you'll encounter and despite acting pretentious at first he's a skilled mage and genuinely good person who just wants to help and is loyal to his teacher. Octavia is a brilliant scientist but prone to panic attacks about horrible things that could happen. The side missions provide plenty of funny moments but the lackluster rewards hamper the overall desire to complete these other than achievements or curiosity.

Nobody Saves the World has a promise and delivers a solid adventure full of laughs and the dungeon crawling is exciting especially during the harder challenges. The large environmental variety on display with the overworld is amazing to explore is pure eye candy but I just wished the developers provided some reward system to encourage exploring outside from more money.  This coupled with the tedious progression system and you'll spend a good 3 hours of this 12-hour adventure just grinding the form's progression. Nobody Saves the World delivers that classic retro adventure experience but is sorely missing a decent reward system.

Review Copy Provided
 

Adam Siddiqui,
Managing Editor, NoobFeed