This is an ongoing list where I attempt to do the following: Play, Complete, and Rank every video game in the known universe in order to finally answer the age old question "What is the greatest game of all time?" For previous entries find the links on the attached spreadsheet.

How did I do?

One of the first games I ever downloaded for the switch was a little indie game called Earthworms. To set the scene we are talking near the infancy of the Switch, when the online store probably maxed out at just 100 games. Nowadays, this game wouldn’t have passed my arduous process in getting downloaded and I would have skipped over its name dozens of time on sales as I looked to see what else was out there. I was naïve back then, I thought that on a Nintendo platform there would be some quality control on their online store. I didn’t know that this was just going to basically be the steam store version 1.1. Some of you are probably laughing at that notion, but I hadn’t owned a Nintendo platform since the Nintendo 64. Nearly every Nintendo console since the 64 I came to, well after it was seen as being current, so I didn’t have a lot of experience with how Nintendo ran its online stores.

Now, all this isn’t to set the scene that “Earthworms” is some terrible game, and it should have been removed from sale years ago. Instead this is to explain why I bought this game with such confidence that I would enjoy it, despite knowing so very little about it. What is this game? Earthworms is an adventure game that plays similar to the point and click games of the genre, but simplified down even more. Sure, you walk around and pick up items that you find, talk to people, and use items to solve puzzles, which all sound like staples of the point and click genre, but Earthworms does take it a step further. Your detective has a special gift and will sometimes get a little aid from beyond as it comes to piecing together the mystery of the world before you, it will help you connect people, items, or themes, but it is vague at best and might not actually do anything you feel is useful.

You are a private detective who has been hired to find a missing girl on an island. When you get to the island though, it’s obvious that there is something else happening here completely. For one, and the namesake of the game, there are tentacles that are growing out of the woods, coming out of cracks and generally everywhere in the world. The habitants of the island, call them Earthworms, and you can see that they are trying their best to figure out how to stop their growth, but they are failing. The tentacles don’t seem violent, they aren’t attacking or hurting people, but they are mysterious nonetheless.

The first thing you will notice with this game is it’s art style. It has a very hand drawn, hand animated look, and it will either work for you or look really cheap. I personally, found that it had a lot of character in its look. It was simplified, but it didn’t look basic. It seems every indie game that is even remotely paying homage to the past is either a throwback and done in 8-16bit, or looks like it was designed in RPG maker, this game thankfully didn’t have that. I realize that it might not be your thing, but this was almost the sole reason for buying it 100 years ago, the art and the fact it was an adventure game.

I have this issue with all adventure games, and it is truly a unique feeling only to this genre. It is the only genre where I feel like I come in with a distinct advantage to having played previous games of the genre. My mind immediately locks in, and I am solving puzzles in the game before they even reveal themselves as puzzles. I pick up sleeping pills and without a second thought, combine them with some water in my inventory, because I figured at some point I will need to drug someone. Of course, I was right, but the point I’m making is that I solved that puzzle, before I even met the person I was supposed to drug. No other genre makes me feel like I have a leg up on the developers quite like an adventure game. With that said, we should talk about the puzzles to this game which are pretty common adventure game fare. Most of the puzzles can be easily logic-ed through by simply using items how they should be used. Wooden boards blocking a door? Great, go find a crowbar or axe and use it on this door. Look at and try to interact with every item in the world, and you will be fine. One of the things that this game does, in order to simplify itself, is that the game doesn’t really let you interact with everything. You can scan your mouse over an entire screen and might only find 3-4 interactive points. This helps you limit yourself to trying to solve for what is actually the puzzle.

Now about halfway through the game, it gets a lot more surreal/super natural, and thus your puzzles get that way too. However, I still didn’t think the puzzles were that much harder. The hardest puzzle I came across was only hard because I wasn’t reading the journal entries that I had picked up, which telegraph the answer in them. With all that said, I can’t say I solved every puzzle, because I didn’t get the good ending. Yes, this is an adventure game with multiple endings, which I could potentially get behind, except for how this is handled. I only learned that I had missed something, in the 2^nd to last room of the game, where there was clearly a place for an item, but I didn’t have that item. I was still able to beat the game, so I assumed that it was perhaps a red herring, or alluding to the mysteries of the world, but when the ending played, the resolution was basically the game shrugging its shoulders. I didn’t actually resolve multiple problems in the game, but it still let me finish. When I reloaded my last save, I tried going back and seeing what I missed, but I couldn’t go back far enough to right the wrong that I missed in the first or second area. I eventually looked up what would have set the good ending in motion, and it was something so innocuous that I don’t even remember the moment when it happened.

I was solving all the puzzles put in front of me, talking to every character and being very thorough while playing the game, but apparently I missed a single conversation, item, or puzzle that does not hinder you in any way except for the final ending. To also then, not be able to go back far enough to right your wrong, was pretty frustrating to me, because I certainly was not going to start the whole game over to make a 1 minute change to a 2-3 hour game. I certainly have no problems with multiple endings, but I think if you as a game maker are suggesting to people that they might need to play the game over multiple times to either get the good ending or right some wrong that a majority of people would miss, then you have to reward them for making that time commitment. What do I get from playing the game for a 2^nd time? New dialogue, new scenes, new puzzles? Does the game add in 15 minutes of unseen content to my game, or do I make one change, play through an identical game, and my reward is a “good” ending that changes the text in a text box?

I get it.. I really do, this is an indie game and it wanted to add replay value to a $2-$3 game, I just think that it could have been incorporated better. Put the “one different thing” at the start of the final chapter, where your last save can still (if you care) give you time to walk all the way back to fix it and get the good ending. Is it my fault for not having multiple saves? I guess, but there isn’t much difference between starting a game over or loading a save from chapter 1.

I’m harping on this, and I will move on. Earthworms is a competent little indie adventure game that perhaps has bigger ambitions then it was able to pull off. The story gets incredibly jumbled, and regardless of what ending you get, doesn’t really help explain it. You travel dimensions, time and space, and yet your character and the characters in this world are pretty unfazed by everything that is happening. This is a game that wraps up its initial mystery of the missing girl, and still has a half-hour left to just meander.

Overall, “Earthworms” is pretty much a meh in the game department. If you are looking for a new adventure game, you could probably do worse, but for only a couple dollars more you could also do so much better. I’m glad to finally play the game, as it has been sitting on my Switch since the dawn of time, but most of my enjoyment is so I can mark this game off my list and move on to something more compelling. It’s a game that doesn’t get me passionate either to sing its praises or point out its failures, it just exists.

Is this the greatest game of all time?: I dont think so.

Where does it rank: It would be relatively easy to just plop this somewhere in the middle of the list and call it, a game that isn't awful and isn't great, but then I would be doing this list a disservice. I have ranked Earthworms as the 113th game out of 128 games. It sits between Gravity Falls: Gnome Gemulets (112) and Shaun White Skateboarding (114).. Yes it's not a terrible game, but its just pretty meh. If the art style doesn't grab you, that is kinda where the unique-ness ends.

Anyone looking for it: here is the link to the list and more if you are interested in following along with me (this is not a self promotion).Here. I added links on the spreadsheet for quick navigation. Now if you missed a blog of a game you want to read about, you can get to it quickly, rather than having to scroll through my previous blogs wondering when it came up.

Thanks for listening

These days when you can just look alternate endings up on Youtube I actually don't think it's a big deal what devs do. My preference is to be able to go back and 100% a game after finishing it by chapter skipping etc... because there are almost no games I want to play through multiple times these days (this made sense when games cost $50 in the 90s but these days you can just pick up something new for a few bucks) but if it's just a matter of missing something small I'm happy to Youtube an ending and move on, especially on the Switch where there aren't even cheevos to miss.

My biggest question about this review is how you, an adult man in 2017, still believed in the Nintendo Seal of Quality. There have been awful shovelware games on every Nintendo system, and every online games store has had massive amounts of trash, so it strikes me a kind of hilariously optimistic to just think "oh this is on a Nintendo system so it HAS to be good."

Had you never heard of Superman 64? Carnival Games? Ninjabread man? Carmageddon 64? Those were all physical releases too.

Is it possible that you never listened to Giant Bomb's premier podcast the Nintendownload Xpress? Or the Bombcasts where they read out the Nintendo DSIware releases before the Nintendownload Xpress spun off into its own thing?

This particular game doesn't even seem that bad. It doesn't seem broken or completely lacking in content or like total trash, but I can't stop thinking of you like some sort of Pee Wee Herman type super optimist just wandering around with a big smile on your face taking everything at face value and trusting random strangers to hold your wallet or look after your car.

@bigsocrates: what!!!?? You don't hand strangers or wallet or car keys as a trust exercise? You are missing out sir.

I realize I'm an idiot, and it wasn't so much a quality seal, I just had higher expectations for the online switch store then steam.. clearly I'm wrong, but it was a wild time when the switch first released.

I did end up youtubing this ending, because I couldn't be bothered to replay it, but I'm with you. Nowadays a game has to be crazy top tier for me to play multiple times to see different endings. I remember playing mass effect 1 and 2 over back to back to see both paths, but that was back when I was in college.

As always, thanks for the read and comment.. I certainly wasn't expecting much community interaction for this game

@imunbeatable80: I think "idiot" is a strong word, I just find it funny that you still trusted Nintendo to run a clean shop after this website had a whole podcast devoted to how much crap they allowed into their store. And that was spun off from a recurring segment on the main podcast!

In defense of replaying Mass Effect 1 and 2, those games are fun to play with great writing and huge differences depending on certain decisions. But yeah, even with games that I might theoretically want to play multiple times I tend not to these days. There are so many bad $3 indie adventure games that need playing!

Surprised that you didn't know this post was going to blow up, though. With your wild Armond White style critique of beloved game Earthworms I thought you were aiming for those controversy clicks.

I didn't know anyone else had heard of this game. I streamed the Steam version last year and I remember it being obtuse in its story. I also got the neutral ending, which did feel lacking.

@eccentrix: yeah it starts off interesting enough, but then doesn't do anything with it. This is a game that I feel 95% of people got the neutral ending if you didn't come into this game knowing it had multiple ones.

Thanks for the read and comment.