Only Up!

Only Up! Is one of those games that I came across by complete accident. It was quite late one night and I was going from stream to stream trying to find something to watch when I came across this woman playing what looked like a strange platforming game. It grabbed my attention and as she was getting more and more frustrated playing the game, I thought to myself, “I have to check this out”. I ended up downloading the game and after spending a bit of time with it, I wanted to share my opinions on the game with you fine folk.

Jack and the Beanstalk

The premise of the “story” of Only Up! Is kind of neat. We play as a young guy called Jackie that has dreams of getting out of the rough ghetto that he lives in and he wants to head up into the sky! This world that Jackie lives in has a kind of Jack and the Beanstalk thing about it in that structures go way up into the sky and beyond the clouds and Jackie dreams of seeing what is up there. I think as a premise for a story, a modern take on a classic fairy tale like this is pretty cool.

Just Shut Up Already!

The way the story of the game is presented is kind of annoying. Only Up! Has this monotone AI sounding voice that narrates Jackie’s journey and I get what they were going for, but man is it brutal! It just rambles on about nothing that is interesting and it reminds me of this one episode of Family guy where Peter starts narrating his life and it drives everyone crazy. I could not find an option in the menu to turn this off! I think the idea of this narration fleshing out the world and making references is great, but the monotone voice is what makes it so boring.

Getting To The Top!

Only Up! Is a very challenging platformer. You start out on the ground and need to platform/parkour your way up as high as you can go. The controls are a bit of a mixed bag, I would say that they work like 90 percent of the time, but every now and again, you will end up with this super frustrating section where it all goes to hell and feels super rough and janky and this is what causes you to fall most of the time. When it is all clicking and you are running, jumping, and using your special abilities, it is fun, but there are moments of frustration here that are made even worse as it often feels like it is not your fault when you fall.

Back At One

I just referenced a Brian McKnight song and I am actually very happy about it. Anyway, a bit of a twist with Only Up! Is that when you fall, you have to start all the way from the bottom again. It kind of reminds me of intentionally frustrating games like Getting Over It. It does make it much more tense when you get higher than you ever have before, but one thing that I hate is that there is this elevator that you can use to get up to a checkpoint, but it takes like five minutes! What is the point?

Pros:

• I liked the idea of climbing through the clouds
• I did get a kick out of some of the references that were made
• It is neat how this is a take on an old fairy tale
• If you are a streamer, this game would be fun to stream

Cons:

• The controls can go from fine to clunky as hell in a second
• What is the point of the elevator???