Willy’s Wonderland – The Game – Review

Willy’s Wonderland – The Game is based on the 2021 movie. It sees you step into the shoes of ‘The Janitor’ or Liv, and you have to survive the horrors of a haunted children’s restaurant by punching, kicking and pounding the possessed animatronics.

Firstly, no Nick Cage’s likeness didn’t make the cut, not even close. So if you were here for that you can go now. Instead, we have a blond-haired clean-shaven Janitor, almost as if Willy’s Wonderland devs purposely made sure it was as far removed from the Hollywood actor’s likeness as possible.

Willy’s Wonderland is an odd title. The film itself was heavily inspired by the Five Nights at Freddy’s craze (and is possibly the best adaptation out there), so here we are with a game – based on a film – based on a game! We are hitting the inception level of adaptations here.

But to its credit, Willy’s Wonderland isn’t a cheap FNAF clone. It’s a super cheap side-scrolling beat ’em up, and that’s a generous description. I have never wanted to burn something so much – this is a terrible experience from the get-go.

Firstly the graphics. We are treated to some super well-drawn comic art in the menus, depicting the playable characters and the bosses we’ll be facing but this gives way to horrible comic-style cutscenes made with 3D models with a terrible filter depicting the opening story. Now, if you didn’t see the movie, good luck, because this isn’t narrated and I can see newcomers not understanding this one bit.

Then we get to choose the boss (or animatronic) we want to face and begin their respective level. In fairness the battles do correspond to the movie, the first boss is Gus Gorilla and is fought in the toilets (or bathroom) other than that though the levels are essentially corridors where you move to the right.

“But Scruff!” I hear you cry. “Isn’t that just what side scrollers are?” Yes, I’ll admit that but even since the early days, the levels had some interactivity, pits to avoid, and the occasional snaking path. Here we have a straight corridor, that’s it, with the (very) occasional box to break. Also, there are extended periods where there are no enemies, nothing, you just walk right. At the end of the level, you see a glowing circle which usually takes you into the boss’s room for the encounter.

The majority of enemies are labelled as “zombies”, presumably previous victims of the restaurant. It’s a good attempt to flesh out the rogue’s gallery and we do get original animatronic sub-bosses which do downgrade to regular enemies. The mechanics are outrageous though.

We have a light and heavy attack, a jump, a dash attack with a cool down and a rechargeable super move (which is just a spinning lariat) but the hit detection is garbage and my punches seemed to be a coin flip whether they hit or not. You move at a snail’s pace, meaning that even though some attacks are telegraphed, you have no chance of avoiding them. Damage scaling is whack as well as enemies hit hard and you seemingly are a wet noodle in comparison – even the super move, which does hit multiple times but only for one damage each hit. Also, stun lock.

I cannot tell you how many times it was juggled between two bad guys as I was batted between them like a bizarre game of tennis, watching my health drop as I could do nothing. There appeared to be no recovery frames for me to defend in, so they would also have uninterruptible moves that they would pull out while you were in a combo (which you can’t stop) meaning it was guaranteed damage and a possible knockdown. You also get every annoying stereotype of an enemy with shielded types, ranged, and those that charge across the screen. Coupling this with the slow movement speed, it just becomes an annoying slogfest.

Luckily the boss’s AI was easily exploitable. For the most part, the bosses were actually easier than common grunts, with me on one occasion completely breaking the fight by just standing in the boss’s hitbox. This was until the massive difficulty spike at level six where Willy’s Wonderland pulls out every annoying enemy archetype and the boss suddenly has invulnerability phases with AoE attacks.

Willy’s Wonderland itself is laid out like a mobile game with each level being independent of the other (nothing carries over, you get a score reset and three lives per level). Even the level success screen has the familiar icons of retry, continue and main menu. The only thing missing was a three-star score system.

The in-game score was laid out like a pinball machine so I have to give credit to authenticity. There was a “fun” gauge that filled up with each hit which does give you access to some helpful buffs, although the game never mentions this and I had to trawl through the options menu to find this out.

Within the limited voice acting we get the stock “oofs” and “grunts” normally associated with this type of game. The music was present but also totally forgettable. The one line of dialogue we do get is a “come on” that the protagonist says to the final boss, but they don’t even change the gender when you are fighting as Liv!

This would normally be where I say “Wait it gets better” because of some redeeming feature but unfortunately, it doesn’t. The whole package was a massively disappointing affair. I spent a total of twenty minutes getting to the point where I got stuck and smashed my head against the difficulty curve for the rest of the playthrough. My reward? Treated to a mediocre cutscene similar to the opening.

I would call it a lazy asset flip but it wasn’t because they had to hand make the 3D models and art so some effort went into this, but it was so low standard that this doesn’t deserve more than two points. One for the original hand-drawn art which I wish the entire game was made in and the second for the fact Willy’s Wonderland never crashed when playing.