Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout Review — Simple And Addictive

Party games don’t nearly get enough credit and recognition despite the fact how accessible and lively they are. However, during the gloomy and uncertain COVID era, Mediatonic decided it was a great time to release a game packed with cheerful jellybeans to make life more upbeat. And now, we arrive at Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout, a title that took the world by storm and made gamers appreciate the little things in life.

Story And Setting

Like most party games, Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout doesn’t feature any kind of plot or narrative, and it honestly doesn’t need one. I mean, what story would you have for jellybeans competing in a wipeout course to grab a gold crown? There’s no dialogue, cutscenes, or any lore pieces to keep you invested in any storyline.

Like most party games, Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout doesn’t feature any kind of plot or narrative, and it honestly doesn’t need one.

As for the setting, the world is covered in color and populated with cute jellybeans that perfectly create that jolly vibe. Staying true to its theme, Fall Guys keeps itself minimal and adds just enough to make you focus on its gameplay in a vibrant environment to amplify the experience. The playful music also does a great job of adding some flavor to that theme. 

Gameplay

Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout offers an addictive gameplay loop that keeps itself fresh by regularly bringing in new content, events, and challenges. Once you enter a match, or “show,” your goal is to outlast all other participants in a series of randomized challenges to get the Crown.

A challenge can be of three types — survival, hunt, or race, and you can see the upcoming challenge’s type and objective beforehand on the loading screen. In most cases, each challenge only lets a specific number of participants qualify, so on top of completing the course, you need to be quick about it, too!

Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout offers an addictive gameplay loop that keeps itself fresh by regularly bringing in new content, events, and challenges.

In a survival challenge, you must stay safe until the timer runs out or until a specific number of contestants get eliminated. On the other hand, race challenges require you to go through a series of obstacles and cross the finish line. Hunt challenges give you a task to complete, and like race challenges, you must be snappy before other contestants qualify.

Of course, this wouldn’t be a party game if you couldn’t play with a party, and Fall Guys lets you pair with up to 4 friends for a show. The game has tons of different modes and ongoing events that update regularly, so there’s always something new to come back to. You can also play solo if you like, but in my experience, nothing beats a chaotic experience when playing with friends.

Simple Mechanics, Simple Rewards, And Simply Fun

Aside from running, your jellybean character can jump, dive, and grab, so the controls are fairly simple to make the game more accessible. Personally, I appreciate this approach since, in a game like Fall Guys, you don’t want to overburden players with complicated mechanics and buttons.

A show usually lasts about 15 minutes, and once you complete it, you get XP which contributes to your Battle Pass. However, if you proved your prowess and won the show, you also get Crowns that boost your Crown Rank and unlock exclusive rewards. 

Despite its unsophisticated and stripped-down nature, I never got tired or bored playing Fall Guys, mainly because the challenges were so unbelievably fun.

Other in-game currencies include Kudos and Show-Bucks, both of which you can use in the shop to get skins, borders, emotes, and more. Don’t worry; these unlockables are purely cosmetic and don’t give any gameplay advantage, so it’s all fair play.

Speaking of cosmetics, the character customization in this game gets really creative at times. Your jellybean gets to pick its color palette and costume, and no matter which combination you try out, the result is always super, super cute. Some costumes even reference characters in other games like Doomguy, Master Chief, the Crewmate from Among Us, and more, so there’s tons of diversity to go around.

Despite its unsophisticated and stripped-down nature, I never got tired or bored playing Fall Guys, mainly because the challenges were so unbelievably fun and there were so many variations that I almost never ran through the same show twice. In a world where modern games focus on stuffing heaps of complicated mechanics inside it, Fall Guys sticks to a sleek and clean formula that’s easy to get into and enjoy.

Visuals And Performance

Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout does a great way of expressing its playful and high-spirited identity by having an uncluttered art style overloaded with cuteness and vibrance. Each and every stage glistens with bright colors that pop out whenever you’re trying to focus. Some might call it “too bright,” but for me, it’s one of the game’s strongest highlights and defining features.

The cartoony animations play a big factor in pushing that party-like energy, and the subtle details are genuinely something to appreciate. Of course, there are no next-gen graphical showcases in a title like this, but considering what the developers were aiming for, they definitely blew it out of the part with these visuals.

Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout does a great way of expressing its playful and high-spirited identity by having an uncluttered art style overloaded with cuteness and vibrance.

As for performance, it’s safe to say you can run this game on pretty much anything. While playing Fall Guys on High settings on a GTX 1660Ti Mobile and an i7-10th Generation laptop, I didn’t notice any stutters, glitches, bugs, or anything of that kind. 

Verdict

Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout is a clear example of being so creative with a simple foundation that everyone, old and young, can admire and actively participate in. Whenever you’re feeling down, bored, or don’t know what to do, booting up this game can easily grab your attention and make you sink several hours into it. Whether you want to be competitive or casual, Fall Guys is genuinely for everyone, which is what makes it so special.

Players familiar with the party-game genre should feel right at home, and as for newcomers, Fall Guys is a perfect starting point since you don’t always need to assemble a pack of friends; you can go in solo and still have a great time. Additionally, the regular content updates boost the game’s longevity, so you always have a reason to come back to it.

This has been our Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout review. While you’re here, consider checking out some of our other recently published reviews.

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Perspective From Other Staff Members

Some of our staff at eXputer, who’ve extensively played Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout, have some thoughts on the game they’d like to share:

• Syed Hamid Ali Shah: Fall Guys was effectively the only game I played towards the latter half of 2020. I absolutely adored everything about this title, from the engaging gameplay to the wonderful atmosphere surrounding it, and I still hop on it occasionally with my friends.
• Huzaifah Durrani: This game’s minimalistic approach is something I really appreciate. One of the reasons why some players, including myself, find it so daunting to play new games is because learning their mechanics takes time. With Fall Guys, you can get in, play it, and have fun with barely any backhand knowledge.