I wanted to love TumbleSeed for its concept and presentation but I found it incredibly frustrating, not because it’s tough, but because a lot of the game’s pick-ups/special abilities are liabilities. Those turrets for example, are so horrible to use that you end up killing yourself just to get one shot off accurately. I seem to remember there being negative feedback loops too where losing seeds would be very difficult to recover from and make the game even harder. I didn’t even get past the tutorial hills before the mountain! It’s brutal. People talk about the Souls games being difficult but they haven’t got anything on TumbleSeed.
I’m amongst the few that has it pegged as my Game of the Year and, as I’ve said in various places, I’m not a huge fan of Mario, the Rabbids or Firaxis’ XCOM so I’m pretty amazed by what Ubisoft have managed to achieve with this unlikely mix. I finished it a couple of months ago and I really miss it.
A good chunk of the challenges are puzzles but you’ll have not got to those yet. The majority of the campaign skirmishes however, are tactical battles. Early on it can certainly feel like a puzzler because you’ve only got three characters, a handful of abilities, some simple enemies and you’re fighting in tighter spaces. Later on however, as the roster of characters and enemies expands, more abilities and status effects are unlocked, environmental elements and wider (and taller) spaces are introduced, the decision space opens up and it becomes much richer tactically (and too chaotic for a puzzler).
Team jumping across the map, chain dash attacking enemies, bouncing off their heads and moving character (and sentries) through tubes is what it’s all about. You gotta move; that’s what you should be learning early on. It’s one of my favourite things about the game and incredibly satisfying when you orchestrate a bunch of intricate manoeuvres to cleanly take out a batch of enemies.
@cpugeek13 you shouldn’t need trial and error to do levels; there’s ample room for planning and tactics. Be sure to have a good look at the map before choosing your characters (and don’t fall back on to the same ones, Rabbid Luigi included); formulate a strategy around them, their synergies, the map and enemies you’re up against; identify vantage points, flanks, good cover, tubes and other ways of reaching them quickly; be prepared to move and adapt as the battle develops.
This is geggis, Mario + Rabbids fanboy, signing off.
