Minion Rush: Running Game

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Description

An exhilarating infinite runner with amusing characters.

One of those genres, The Endless Runner, had a bright potential but was ultimately tarnished by an overabundance of subpar works. Developers have occasionally turned to licensing in an effort to save face, sometimes with much worse results.

The video game industry has been flourishing, aiming to capitalize on the popularity of Despicable Me (which was well-deserved, in my opinion). On the other hand, the Despicable Me film series certainly wouldn’t have taken off the way it did without those yellow-colored cuties (the Minions). Unfortunately, the buzz they created also resulted in a considerable amount of rotting fruit.

The biggest issue is that a movie’s popularity doesn’t always transition well into the world of gaming. That has happened time and time again. Although in principle it should be, if Superman 64 is any indication, licensing is not a guarantee of quality. Contrarily, numerous Spider-Man video games have received positive reviews, so not all is lost.

What about Minion Rush, though? Does it has the necessary qualities to reverse the trend of poor licensed games? Could it buck the trend of games with bad runners? I guess, sort of.

Gameloft has a reputation for creating the greatest AAA mobile game knockoffs, mostly in the visual area. With Minion Rush, they don’t hold back when it comes to flexing their graphical muscles, and we must be honest and say that they deserve credit for giving this game graphics that still look fantastic after nearly 9 years. However, the design is just as deserving of appreciation as the graphics strength. This game has a pleasing range of scenarios and well-executed character models, and it looks gorgeously colored.

In addition to the excellent graphics, the voice acting, sound design, and music all contribute to the feeling that you have been transported into a brand-new Minions film. The yellow companions in this game will also provide you with a lot of humorous moments. Along the way, you’ll also run with a lot of well-known characters, including the legendary Gru and Dr. Nefario, among others.

Having said that, there is still one aspect of this game that irritates me: Specifically, why are the minions running?

Despite its flaws, Temple Go (the father of endless runners) at least provided you with a clear reason for playing; in Minion Rush, I’m not entirely sure what happened to cause the characters to run around and cause trouble.

It almost seems like Gameloft’s developers just sat down and decided to create an infinite runner, with the Minions skin acting as a purely promotional tool. You won’t be playing this game for the plot, I’m sure, but it would have been wonderful if the creators had given it half as much thought as they did the looks.

I have one more serious criticism of this game, which I’ll discuss in the part that follows.

Editor’s Review & How To Play

In the endless runner Minion Rush: Running Game, you command the well-known Minions from the Despicable Me film series. One of the four minion characters is your choice: Carl, Jerry, Mel, or Dave, who is the default. Initially, you would encounter your minion character taking part in a variety of trials with the others.

You can switch between three lanes while running, and your goal is to collect as many floating bananas as you can. In addition to moving left or right, your character can also swipe up to jump or down to duck in order to escape obstacles and enemy and monster assaults.

By completing levels, you can win rewards like bananas, cash, tokens, and outfit cards to enhance the attraction of your character. Dave is the minion with the most outfit options when it comes to customization, partly because it was the only playable character at launch while the other minions were added afterwards.

You will have access to the rooms during your gameplay, which are special gaming locations with a variety of quests and momentary occurrences. By tapping on the corresponding Mission widget that is displayed in the room’s interface, you can view a mission’s specifics.

The mobile version’s substantially reduced number of game types is a major letdown in my opinion. The mobile game once featured a number of game types, but the most of them were eliminated in later updates for reasons I am not aware of.

The game’s major feature used to be Jelly Lab, which featured jelly machines that the minions could run on while collecting fruit to move through the many levels of the lab. Other game types, such as the Minion Races and Events, were removed for reasons I cannot fathom.

The Despicable Ops is the only room, as of this writing, that features boss fights in a similar way to the old Jelly Lab. It “replaced” the Jelly Lab by letting you navigate a succession of stages spread across 40 chapters.

Each of the Special Missions has six phases. You must collect unique artifacts located at certain plot locations in order to complete these assignments. Between stages, these things change. Fevers (equippable items that grant invincibility and speed), Market Tickets (a sort of currency that may be traded in the Market), or banana coins (used to buy virtual game products like costume cards), as well as prize pods are awarded for completing all the stages.

Your Agent Rank, which is a reflection of how “despicable” you have grown to be while carrying out your Minion Secret Agent responsibilities, rises as you advance.

You must obtain Agent Rank 2 in order to unlock the unique assignments. You can travel to numerous different places, some of which are Gru’s Lab, the Residential Area, Minion Beach, El Macho’s Lair, and The Arctic Base. The Downtown is exclusively accessible in the PC edition, while there are roughly 17 areas available overall in the mobile version.

Even without the Despicable Me license, Minion Rush: Running Game is a fantastic game in and of itself. However, bad design choices and a blatant lack of a purpose are enough to diminish engagement and replayability value, detracting from what is otherwise a crown jewel of mobile gaming. Although I’m still confident that you’ll be able to enjoy it, I would suggest that you lower your expectations in before.

Are you currently the most abhorrent Minion Secret Agent ever? Let me know down below!