Baby Steps Reviews
Baby Steps walks a fine line between frustration and accomplishment to provide a walking simulator and climbing experience quite unlike anything else.
A Sisyphean challenge after which you'll never take pressing W to walk for granted again.
Baby Steps is an infuriating ordeal of intentionally awkward physics that’s brutal, unbelievably stupid, and downright awesome.
Everything Baby Steps does, it executes with excellence, and I can’t think of anything else like it.
It's impossible to hate a game that offers experiences like these.
Some will enjoy struggling to climb sandy dunes and laughing at their friends falling down the same cliffside for the hundredth time, but no amount of creative appreciation will change how I felt playing Baby Steps. Every time I put the controller down, I dreaded picking it back up.
You'll painfully wander aimlessly for hours. You'll cringe hard at the "humor" that gets way too gratuitous, gross, and vulgar completely unjustifiably. This becomes a mostly mean-spirited game that even wants to drive you insane with the soundtrack. Laugh and watch someone else experience it if you want to, but do not play it yourself.
As literal a walking simulator as you could want for, Baby Steps makes no secret of being a challenging, punishing game. It's enjoyable in a way, and the awkward sense of humour laced throughout both the gameplay and the story will appeal to some, but that enthusiasm drains after the opening couple hours.
What we have at the end of the day is a strange, silly game that is a little too sure of itself to stick its landing effectively. It stretches itself too thin to be consistently funny and its story is clumsily told despite its put-on air of poignance. It has its moments though, and for as grumpy as I was by the end I still look back at its early hours with some fondness. Watching a dumpy nerd slide down a muddy hill is pretty funny the first few times; it just doesn’t stay funny as long as Baby Steps wants it to.
Baby Steps won't click with everyone, but if you have the patience, it delivers one of the most memorable and oddly inspiring platformers in years. Every laugh comes with frustration, every fall makes the next step sweeter, and the whole thing somehow feels worth it. It's clumsy and challenging, but also one of the most charmingly human games you'll play this generation.
Baby Steps has a simple premise, but a lot of depth. You’re pushed to be patient and persistent by the mechanics. In fact, the whole game is built around punishing you for being foolish or hasty. Every character is begging you to relax, take in the scenery, and have a good time. If you listen, you just might enjoy yourself. But make no mistake, this game can be crazy frustrating. Tiny mistakes can lead to gigantic consequences, after all. If you’re patient enough to master the deranged control scheme, you’ll be shocked by what you can accomplish in Baby Steps.
Baby Steps is more than it first appears, offering up a heartfelt story about a man grappling with his insecurities as he's forced to keep going. The intentionally tricky walking and climbing is a lot of fun to grapple with, and there's plenty of silly stuff to discover in the open world setting. Your mileage may vary due to various factors, not least the amount of punishment you'll take as you scramble up the mountain, but it's a journey worth taking for those willing to persist.
Brutally frustrating, exasperating, and exhilarating, Baby Steps is a journey befitting the legacy of its creators. While the humor may be a bit too crass for some, there’s a surprisingly poignant narrative wrapped around a fairy tale in the bizarre, uncomfortable world Nate finds himself…and a constant reminder to get back up every time you fall, to continue putting one foot in front of the other. Hooroo.
Tiptoeing on the knife's edge of punishing rage bait and profound accomplishment, Baby Steps will either victimize or enthrall depending on the player. That fine line opens the path for both a brilliant anti-game or a fist through your screen, your mileage simply may vary.
Baby Steps surpassed all my expectations and even small grievances to become a thrilling, trying and memorable journey about being better and learning to ask for help. It’s certainly one of the harder ‘one of those’ types of ragebait climbing games, but each step it makes in tackling this niche is as deliberate as the ones you’re making as the clumsy Nate. What’s within is a refinement of the subgenre, providing a layered and surprisingly poignant world and story to explore. Bennett Foddy and co. have made their opus here, and even with every plummet and misstep I made, I had the best experience in the space I’ve ever had, uniquely hating, loving, loathing and delighting in it. If the devs are reading this, I hate you guys. But also, I bloody love you.
Baby Steps is exactly all it’s advertised to be. A clumsy, physics-first walking simulator that places an unwashed oaf at the heart of a very odd world. I don’t feel like it’s as punishing as Getting Over it, but the game’s singular goal of getting through it, step by step, makes for a surprising experience that makes walking, of all things, a lot of fun.
And love Baby Steps I did. There are few ways this game could better achieve its aims; in what it is trying to be Baby Steps approaches perfection. Whether what it is trying to be is for you, well that depends on if you feel that a rapturous level of self satisfaction is worth braving a storm of intense frustration and inconsolable rage. For those with the resolve (or stubbornness, or self loathing, or masochism), you won’t find a better test of all of them than Baby Steps. If you have the resilience of a damp tissue and capacity for frustration of a tired toddler, keep on walking by
Baby Steps, no pun intended, seems like a step backwards for Bennett Foddy and team. Losing the battle between fun and frustrating, frustrating and annoying, always wins when it comes to Baby Steps.
There is a meaningful tale behind it all, but Baby Steps more often than not makes you feel sorry for Nate and the odds are always stacked against you-just like Nate. Give it a go then, but nobody should blame if you take one trip too many and just don’t feel like continuing the repetitive trudge.
Like Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy, Baby Steps is a unique and polarizing game. But compared to its predecessor, it offers a more forgiving challenge and deeper mechanics, with absurd storytelling and interactive elements that keep you moving forward almost in spite of yourself.
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