Review: Boti Byteland Overclocked

“Boti Byteland took that extra step taking me back to my childhood.” | Boti Byteland Overclocked, developed by Purple Ray Studio, and published by Untold Tails and CouchPlay Interactive throws you into a delightful, vast, and colourful world that will show you the inner workings inside a computer and what you would think it would look like. Currently, Boti Byteland Overclocked is only on Windows PC and Steam, you and a friend must work together to uncover the truth behind the ominous threat taking Byteland by storm. This 3D platformer lets you Jump, Dash, and Dive through a variety of different worlds, that just get better and better as you explore. You will experience a world that will need your utmost and pure cooperation alongside your partner as you get through obstacles and enemies trying to stop you from saving Byteland. Will you save the place you call home or become obsolete… Are you up for the challenge?

Things I liked!

• Fun characters | Meet Boti, the cute and charming data bot, and his helpful companions Zero and One who will help you through your journey as you try to uncover the truth surrounding the mysterious threat that has plagued Byteland. They will help you defeat bosses, and eradicate glitches, corrupted malware, and various viruses causing trouble and havoc throughout the beloved world. Their funny and clever dialogues make it an enjoyable journey as you learn to build a relationship with Boti and the other characters. One of my favourite characters in Boti Byteland Overclocked was believe it or not the Kernal. The Kernal is the Task Manager of Byteland who tasks you with a simple integration routine, collecting data, and then a very important mission that sets off the events of the threat. The Kernal to me has a very memorable voice that reminds me of the late actor Edward Asner who starred in films like Elf and Disney’s UP. As you play through Boti Byteland Overclocked you will meet a lot of different personalities in Byteland including the worker bots and those who call Byteland their home. Although they don’t all speak, they all have their own unique dialogues and interactions. For example, you will come across a construction boss who is looking for his lazy construction crew who are slacking off and hiding from doing any work, just give them a quick whack and you will wake them up reminding them they have a job to do. There are bots who are civilians living their everyday lives and a news bot that tells us breaking news on the threat of Byteland, so many different characters to meet and learn about.

• Vibrant colourful open worlds | Byteland has many different types of worlds, from the inside of a graphics card to the level based on the inside of a computer’s antivirus, the developers at Purple Ray Studio truly use their creativity and minds to create something that not even my imagination could come up with. Whilst exploring you will find many different nods and easter eggs based on other characters or movies whilst running through the huge world of Byteland. Being a huge fan of other 3D platformers in the past, such as Spyro the Dragon and Crash Bandicoot, Boti Byteland took that extra step taking me back to my childhood. Boti Byteland Overclocked is a fun-packed open world for you to explore with a third-person view. Purple Ray Studio created a world that was unforgettable and nostalgic to me, being a colourful place to explore with amazing details giving it that extra push. The levels of detail added into Byteland really helped bring the worlds to life, from the cables and wiring connected to the pieces of hardware to the interior workings of a GPU it really showed imagination and creativity which made it a more enjoyable experience.

• Easter Eggs and Secrets | I am a huge supporter of Easter Eggs in video games and find them highly enjoyable. Boti Byteland Overclocked as always did not disappoint me on this and created ways to give you that feel of walking around as a character from another franchise. Byteland has scattered portals that you must find and scan, this will unlock a new outfit for Boti to wear. A mechanic I absolutely loved was the whole customisation part which made you want to fully explore Byteland searching for these portals, unlocking more costumes to use. One of my favourites was one based on The Matrix which came with a black cape and suit with a pair of black shades. Unfortunately, although the image shows a pair of shades on your character, they didn’t seem to show up on Boti which was unfortunate, but it was still a nice nod to the Matrix franchise. You will come across different secrets around the levels from the Bot Coins which you must find when exploring Byteland. Keep an eye out for the Kernel’s audio recordings these will explain better the backstory of what the Kernel is doing and the mysteries of Byteland. You will be able to use the computer back at your home in the HUB world where you can do things like the lottery which will help you unlock more outfits, customize your home with new looks and furniture, and a few details I’ll let you find out! Using the Bot currency, you collect from smashing boxes plus the ones scattered around the place you will be able to buy new skins but only by using the lottery mechanic. In your home, you can even change the way Boti looks from the outfits you have unlocked through the portals, progression, and lottery wins.

• Fun gameplay | Byteland is like all 3D platformers which I only wish there were more of as one of my top favourite games was the Spyro the Dragon series. But one thing that made this different from other games is the fact you could play the entire adventure with a friend in a co-op. I had a blast with my partner running through the eight different levels, exploring, collecting, and finding out what really happened to Byteland and where this sinister plot that threatened the technological world came off. The gameplay had different skills and powers that you unlocked from magnetism which would help you accomplish brain teasers and puzzles that also helped you cross places that were too far to jump or glide. It had a very Spider-Man feel to it as you could use the magnetism to swing yourself across or work together to pull or push one enough through parts. You can slide on cables plus slowly walk on them but be careful as you can lose your balance and fall into the deep. You do not have to have a friend to join if you prefer you can use an AI companion with a drop-in and drop-out functionality which is a nice feature and doesn’t force you to only be able to play Boti Byteland Overclocked with a friend, I would highly recommend playing with a partner as it is a much more enjoyable time.

Neither good nor bad

• Slide, Slide, Slide | Another cool inspiration taken from a video game was the musical puzzle slide which looked a lot like a nod to Guitar Hero. You must slide through the notes whilst dodging the electrical fences and other obstacles blocking the way, till you reach the end and from doing so if you complete the slide with all the notes you will be rewarded a gold trophy. But missing any of the notes will cause you to have to shoot yourself from the cannon to restart if you want to as it is not needed and more for the achievement hunters and collectors. Although this mini-game is tricky and very time-consuming it was nice to relive another gaming classic, but it could get very repetitive and annoying as you would end up missing one note due to a lag or a glitch causing you to have to restart from the beginning which to some would be very frustrating.

Things I disliked!

• Lags and Glitches | One thing that really started to affect us during our playthrough of Boti Byteland Overclocked was the huge number of issues we were having. We had a few issues where we would not load into the level properly causing one of us to be stuck under the map. Another example was when sliding down the musical slide mini-game as literally almost at the bottom with a hundred percent of the notes collected, I was pulled all the way back whilst still in the mechanic of sliding on the spot, causing me to have to redo the entire slide again which then threw me off the slide due to the lag this annoyed me a lot. During cutscenes, characters would not appear to be speaking and the audio would not come through so we would end up just skipping through causing us to miss out on important information and the storyline. Sometimes the map wouldn’t spawn properly with one of us falling through the map. It really started to ruin the gameplay and fun for us. Due to it being a new release and like most games having a few glitches and problems here and there we kind of understood but other than that it was a very pleasant game.

How long to beat the story | 7 hours
How long to unlock all achievements | 10 hours
You’ll love this game if you like these | Spyro the Dragon, Rachet & Clank, A Hat in Time