He-Man: The Most Powerful Game in the Universe Review

Fabulous 1980s Saturday morning cartoon hero He-Man is back on the scene, courtesy of Chillingo and the small team at GlitchSoft. Skeletor is once again up to no good, this time with an especially meta storyline. The bone dome has trapped He-Man within a video game and it’s up to players to fight their way through 25 enemy-filled stages to save the day.

Gamers play with both thumbs on their touch screen. Dragging left and right with your left thumb moves. Tapping the right side of the screen swings He-Man’s Power Sword. As players progress more gestural attacks open up. Swiping down activates a whirlwind strike, swiping up sends He-Man airborne into an uppercut and so-on.

He-Man’s control set-up isn’t awful, but it’s too stiff and unresponsive to effectively deal with Trap Jaw, Beast Man and the other enemies players will encounter. Players can’t change direction mid-air. Players can’t stop an attack’s animation once it has started. Enemies that aren’t killed in one hit can (and will) walk through your attack and damage you.

He-Man isn’t an especially difficult game. I was able to dish out plenty of damage, and healing hearts are in frequent supply around the environment. But for a game that is ostensibly supposed to be a platform-brawler, it doesn’t feel good when the biggest on-screen threat is a meandering bat, because it’s too hard to rapidly turn around or hit enemies from below. It doesn’t help that level design largely feels rote. Secrets are hidden in plain sight and enemies attack in predictable patterns.

Despite these issues, I still enjoyed my journey through Eternia. The game’s fantastic cartoony style is a huge nostalgia trip, as is the excellent He-Man music. Little details like He-Man's strikes destroying parts of the background and sending debris flying into enemies do a lot to help the player feel powerful. The game also includes dozens of rare high-res photos of early product packaging, sketches, comic book covers and more to further the nostalgia value.

Cold? He-Man can't FEEL cold.

Even with its issues, He-Man’s $0.99 asking price isn’t unreasonable given the length of the adventure and the quality of the stage and character artwork. Unfortunately the game’s aggressive In-App Purchase strategy represent further cost for completionists. Players earn gems through normal play to unlock new moves, powerful one-off attacks, health boosts, many of the bonus artwork and more.

But the gems simply accumulate too slowly. By the end of the game I’d earned just enough gems to buy all of He-Man’s moves – nothing more. No bonus art, health packs or consumable power-ups. I beat the game without spending more than the starting $0.99 – so the IAP gem packs truly are optional. But it’s still disappointing that I can’t experience the full package without grinding for more gems or spending more dough.