Console Corner: Review of Hob

Heavily inspired by Nintendo's Legend of Zelda, Hob (2017) is a single-player environmental puzzler with bits of melee combat. Like Link running around the land of Zelda, Hob pulls a lever here which opens a door there, which leads to a key that can be used to access the elevator you first encountered entering the level, that leads to another level which... You get the picture. Regardless of influences, the question is: how well is the game done?

But where Legend of Zelda had 3D pretensions in a 2D world, Hob is fully 3D. Accordingly, Runic Games put the majority of its time into the game's visuals and puzzles such an environment has the opportunity for. And it paid off; they are the strongest elements of the game. The graphics emphasize machines, gears and interlocking pieces, which feel great spinning and clicking into place. (Sound effects are complementary.) If games can be reduced to pleasure, then solving a puzzle and watching how the pieces click into place is where Hob's dopamine hits.

Hob is set in a science fiction-y fantasy land where machines and nature coexist. The visual motif feel is something of a 3D version of Sonic the Hedgehog. Happy forest creatures co-mingle with various baddies you need to bash on your way through a level. Where it differs, however, is 1) in the ability to level up Hob and his massive metal arm, and 2) the fact the game is set in one big, interlinked map rather than linear, 2D levels.

Another positive aspect of the puzzling is that developers do minimal if any hand-holding. Most cues for progress are inherent to gameplay. Due to map pieces opening up, obvious changes in the landscape, or actual targets appearing on the in-game map, players know what to do without being told. I did, however, reach a point in the end game where progression was not obvious. It took me two hours of to-ing and fro-ing to figure things out, and what I was missing wasn't obvious.

Which leads to a minor negative point: the narrative of Hob is not that strong. On one hand it's nice to figure things out as you go—to learn about the land, its creatures, its mechs, its blight, and its secrets. On the other hand, there is an underlying lack of purpose without a story. “Figure things out” is the raison d'etre. But again, this is minor. A sense of narrative purpose would have helped give the player an underlying understanding of what the game is about—and potentially saved me two hours of hunting. The game is roughly 10-12 hours in total (for non-completionists), so this is not an insignificant amount of time.

Melee combat in Hob is a straight-forward affair. Players have two attack types: a weak attack (Hob's sword) and a strong attack (Hob's power glove), the latter which requires charging up to have good effect. Players use these attacks, combined with turbo boosts, roll dodges, and jumping to defeat the various enemies. And all of these can be upgraded by finding upgrades in the environment and spending in game resources at upgrade points—turbo punch, jumping slam, faster energy regeneration, etc. All in all, melee combat feels neither tacked on nor does it feel fully integrated with the game. There are empty spaces Hob must traverse solving the environmental puzzles, and it seems developers thought: why not fill some with enemies? It works well, but won't knock your socks off.

But there is still one thing begging to be addressed: controls. While on open ground and in combat Hob moves smoothly. Platform traversal, however, is another issue, and ledges are the primary problem. Moving too close to one causes Hob to fall off and grab, which can be extremely frustrating when all you wanted him to do was jump to another ledge or walk along the current ledge. Walking close to a ledge at Hob's head height can also cause him to suddenly clamber upwards when you wanted him to stay on his current level. To be fair, platform traversal does not prevent Hob from being playable, but it does regularly put speed bumps in the player's way.

In the end, Hob looks good, feels good, and is overall a fun experience. The game's style is nice, the puzzles are engaging, and completing the game feels satisfying. For people who like environmental puzzles interlinked in a single world map with bits of combat, this is for you. What's lacking is an overarching sense of purpose: why am I in this world, and why am I doing what I'm doing? Secondly, controls can occasionally be frustrating. Polishing the controls and giving a bit more narrative would have made a good game of what is a solid game.