Badland: Game of the Year Edition

Badland: Game of the Year Edition translates to PlayStation platforms well. The understated but attractive aesthetic runs smooth and fast on all platforms, and there's tons of content. The challenge does get a little stiff, however, and the experience was clearly designed around short play sessions. It's unlikely to hold your interest forever, then, but for the short time that it does it's a splendid game.

Badland is as dark, brooding, and mysterious as the most sullen teenager, but this seemingly simple game is built on a foundation of ingenious design. Its hands-off approach to guiding the player makes for an invigorating challenge where it counts, and plentiful checkpoints help alleviate the frustration that comes from later levels. It teaches you how to interact with the environment before turning it all on its head with a slew of mutations that change your abilities, and that's a little bit brilliant.

What it comes down to is that, even though it's a redesigned version of its mobile counterpart, BADLAND: Game of the Year Edition is experimental and rich enough to justify its existence on a home console.

Thanks to a simple but attractive gameplay, it's easy to spend many fun hours navigating the levels and avoiding their dangers. A welcome contribution to the Nintendo Switch catalogue for those who enjoy experiences involving physics-based gameplay.

BADLAND: Game of the Year Edition is an entertaining game, but whose playable mechanics have been tremendously outdated. Visually very beautiful and with a somewhat discreet sound section but that works well, it benefits from its low price.

I give Badland props for its challenge, multiplayer, bold visual style, and content relative to its price. But it's a game that wears its mid-2010s origins on its sleeves, warts and all. I feel it hasn't held up as well as hoped and will have its work cut out for it to stand out on the congested Switch eShop. Want to play Badland in 2021? Do so on a mobile device instead. You'll get touch screen support and more content that way.

Badland: Game of the Year Edition is a challenging, well-executed game with inventive puzzles and beautiful graphics. All this in a complete package and a reasonable duration, which avoids becoming tiresome.

While this is a title that has been around for quite some time at this point, I’m surprised by how well it has held up both in terms of its great funky art style and its simple-but-challenging play...

Badland: Game of the Year Edition is a successful example of how a game designed for mobile devices can be interesting to play on the Wii U. Despite its inconsistencies and the lack of a solid plot, its gameplay provides some brilliant moments and the game is full of content and compelling ideas.

With 100 single-player levels, Badland: Game of the Year Edition is a worthy single-player romp on the Wii U, if you don't mind a little frustration every now and then. But with 100 co-op levels—not to mention 27 multiplayer deathmatch stages—it's a perfect addition to your multiplayer arsenal. So long as you're okay with senseless clone death.