Try and pretend this debacle never happened.
Totemball is billed as ‘a musical adventure,’ which admittedly sounds a lot better than ‘generic and weak platformer.’ In it, you play as a turtle who inexplicably rides atop a ball. Your goal is essentially to get from one end of a level to another while copiously collecting little treasures scattered about. Levels generally consist of gentle hills and slopes with the occasional ‘narrow platform over chasm’ section that tests your precision a bit. Pretty standard, boilerplate stuff.
There’s nothing inherently wrong about sticking to an established formula. The problem is that Totemball manages to completely mangle it with awkward and flat-out broken controls. As mentioned, Totemball is played completely using hand gestures picked up by the Xbox Live Vision. Two waterfalls with little platforms are always present at each corner of the screen. Using your arms, you can lift or lower each platform to make yourself move around the level. This control scheme is sluggish and uncomfortable from the start. It’s a thrust-based system in which placing the left platform all the way to the top will make your ball veer to the right like, say, Katamari Damacy. Why that sort of mentality was applied to a ball that you’re riding (as opposed to pushing) remains a mystery. The uncomfortable position of having your arms outstretched for minutes at a time is also an issue, though the occasional resting zone helps accommodate this a bit.
Much more vexing, though, is the finicky nature of these controls. In order to roll around the levels with any sort of consistency, you’ll need to be bathed in just the right amount of light. Just a bit too much or too little, and you may as well give up. Even when it seems like your figure is traced perfectly overtop of the screen, accurately moving the platforms around is a chore. The infuriatingly slow pace at which you move further fuels to the frustration.
Totemball’s simple and colorful visuals are just too basic to come off positively. Ugly textures and blocky geometry abound in this game. Rudimentary-looking details like grass look poor and make your ball look as though it’s sinking into the ground at times. The sound picks up the slack, if only a little bit. Totems are spread throughout the various levels, each playing its own little techno loop. You’ll pick up a couple in most levels, and its mildly interesting to see how the loops overlap each other. On the whole, though, the game seems appallingly quiet, with too few sound effects to create an appealing soundscape.
Totemball is a completely unambitious idea executed poorly. It was designed specifically for use with the recently released Xbox Live Vision, but ironically, it would have been a markedly better game with more traditional controls. As it stands, the sluggish, nonsensical, and finicky controls suck what modest fun there is to be had with a basic platformer. Throw in a lackluster presentation, and Totemball sits firmly at the bottom of Xbox Live Arcade offerings, even if it is free.