Webbed is a tiny little game about a tiny little spider bonding with their tiny little community to rescue their boyfriend, and I love it lots and lots.
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Title: Webbed
Release Date: February 2, 2022 (Switch)
Price: $19.99
Suggested Audience Age: Everyone (Mild Fantasy Violence)
Time to Play: 4 hours, according to How Long To Beat
Availability: Switch, Steam
Recommended for fans of: 2D Platforming, Peter Parker, and Happy Little Bugs
Geek to Geek Media was provided with a review copy of this title.
I DON’T KNOW HOW TO START TALKING ABOUT WEBBED!
Just look at it! Do you see how absolutely adorable the art in this game is? It’s so dang cute!
I think Webbed first popped onto my radar when the creator of Skatebird tweeted about it ages ago, but I never got around to trying it out on PC because, well, my computer is for staring at a blank text document trying to figure out how to write about Webbed, not for gaming.
Thankfully, the game recently hit the Nintendo Switch eShop and I got the chance to try it out. I absolutely love this game, but I’m really struggling to figure out how to talk about it because JUST LOOK AT IT IT’S SO CUTE WHAT ARE YOU NOT UNDERSTANDING ABOUT THIS?!
Charming, First and Foremost
Okay, so. Webbed is a game where you play as a spider. Yes, I know that will be a problem for some people, but I promise it’s not so bad. First of all, the spider you are playing as is just absolutely adorable. Second, there’s only one other spider in the game – your boyfriend – who is equally adorable. Third, there’s a dedicated button on the controller for making your spider dance, which is adorable.
Still, I know arachnophobia is a thing, so if you really can’t jive with the adorable spider there’s an arachnophobia mode that turns the character into an adorable ball instead.
The whole game is oozing with charm. The pixel art is outstanding throughout the environments you explore, and the other buggy creatures you meet on your journey are all really well illustrated. On top of that, there’s a lot of great little writing in this game, too. The whole story feels cozy and wholesome, but individual NPCs have one-off lines that made me giggle, a lot like the world of Ocean’s Heart.
Being a Spider Feels Great
The main gameplay in Webbed is focused on your spider’s webs. You explore a decently sized, 2D open-world by shooting webs and swinging around. It’s a bit different since it’s 2D, but I think the swinging in this game feels at least as good and fluid as it does in the PlayStation Spider-Man titles. It’s really phenomenal.
On top of swinging on a thread, you can also attach webs from one object to another. At its most basic, this makes a bridge you can walk across. Start attaching webs to webs, and you can build a pretty impressive structure. There’s a great physics engine at play here, and a lot of your journey through Webbed is designed around connecting anchor points to move objects around in the world.
Oh, also you can shoot out a laser to destroy your webs because of course you can.
Pacing Issues
In true “capital V capital G” Video Gaming fashion, your journey will take you to three distinct areas in order to complete three objectives during the game. Each of the areas you visit has a unique environmental feel, cast of characters, and set of obstacles to overcome.
I think you can go any direction from the start, but I happened to head underground to meet with the ants at the start of my playthrough. This took me into a sprawling ant colony where I had to find and activate several different mechanisms in order to help them build an ant mech. Yes, there is an ant mech. Yes, it is awesome.
My adventure in the anthill was a long journey that required platforming finesse, puzzle-solving, and a lot of exploration and backtracking, almost like a Metroidvania game. It was pretty great.
My only real complaint about the game is that the other two areas were way more straightforward. To the East and West, I found what were basically two different types of platforming challenges, and not much more than that. There wasn’t really much exploration to do, and there was almost no puzzle solving.
I still enjoyed those areas, but they weren’t quite as rad as the first.
Final Thoughts
I won’t spoil the end of Webbed, because it’s a short enough game that if you pick it up and start playing you’ll still remember this review by the time you get to the epic finale. I’ll just say that I was a little down after those second two environments didn’t live up to the first, but ended the game absolutely loving it. Between the wonderful art style, funny writing, and the absolute joy of zipping around as an adorable little spider, this game is spectacular.
If Webbed 2 comes along I’ll be there on day 1!