YMMV / de Blob

• Adaptation Displacement: After the Wii version came out, just try to find someone who's heard of the original PC tech demo, let alone played it.
• Awesome Art: There's no doubt about the CGI in the sequel being really good, as it's very fluid, cartoonish, and bouncy. It really helps make the entire game seem like a cartoon trapped inside a video game.
• Awesome Music: Not to put too big a spin on it, but the soundtracks from these games most certainly kick ass. Especially since every track starts out slow and simple when you enter a level, and gradually gets more complex and up-tempo as color returns to the world. Some tracks even change from a minor to a major key. Top honors include:
  • Top honors from the first game include:
    • "Décor", the theme for the "Blissful" mood (associated with Last Resort), is a relaxing introduction to the game.
    • "Raydian Day", the theme for the "Unstoppable" mood (associated with Uptown), an energetic and deliciously funky track that'll make you indeed feel unstoppable when taking down INKT. Selecting it following "Blissful" above also gives the message that the training wheels are off and that this is when the revolution really begins.^note And The 8-Bit Drummer likes it, too.
    • "Into It", the theme for the "Righteous" mood (associated with Downtown), a classic jam that would make the likes of James Brown proud.
    • "DB 606", the theme for the "Euphoric" mood (associated with the Chroma Dam), a deliciously funky and happy beat that will never leave your head.
    • "Crescent Chroma City", the theme for the "Brazen" mood (associated with the Chroma City Fun Park), starts off far more melancholic than the other tunes, only to catch up in no time at all. Given that this is the point in the story where the rest of Chroma City begins to rise up, too, you could argue that the song's progression represents the Raydians finally having enough of their INKT overlords.
  • The second game obviously has some good jams, too:
    • "The Colourist Agenda", the theme for the "Empowered" mood (associated with the Senate), gives the aura of a determined and serious offensive against the political machinations of Comrade Black and the Blanc Party, while being no less of a boogie than its peers.
    • "Colour on the Dancefloor", the theme for the "Chilled" mood (associated with the Inktron Collider), is the closest the series' OST gets to a full-on disco groove, and that's saying something.
• Creepy Cute: The Blancs are some of the most adorable brainwashed cultists ever. Some may consider the Inkies also to be cute, especially since the common small ones have higher-pitched voices in the sequel. Alas, this may actually be a case of Killer Rabbits, given the reprehensible things the Inkies commit throughout all the games.
• Cult Classic: There’s quite a bit of people who have fond, nostalgic memories of the game and state that even today the games, especially the sequel, are definitely worth playing. Given the music and art style are a delight for the senses even today, it's no shocker.
• Designated Hero: While INKT's ruthlessness and Comrade Black's own callousness prevent the Color Underground from being this in the slightest, the original PC demo's version of Blob seems to count. The game starts with Blob's ship crashing into Utrecht and him immediately beginning to absorb its brightly-colored residents. Arguably, de Blob is confused and in his rush to avoid INKT forces inadvertently rolls into innocents, although there's an equal case to be made that Blob is actively malicious and in the larger scheme of things the INKT forces are the true heroes in this game. If you don't have enough of a certain color to paint a landmark, the game will bring up text saying, "You need to absorb at least [number] people!"
• Even Better Sequel: As well-received as the first game was for its style and level design, de Blob 2 is appreciated for having a greater emphasis on story and world-building, some very good Art Evolution, more abundant sources of color to play with (compared to how the first game relied solely on the normal and Big Paintbots), and more level-by-level variety, such as the Super Mario Galaxy-like gravity sections and how landmarks have been expanded into their own 2D segments.
• Genius Bonus: In the intro comic to the Blanc Cola Cannery level in the sequel, Arty drinks a can of Blanc Cola, hates it, and questions if INKT put waxed tadpoles in it.
  Comrade Black, elsewhere: ...Needs more tadpole.
• Moe: Just admit that all the characters, even the villains, are adorable.
• Moral Event Horizon: Comrade Black charges past this in the last level of the second game, when he forces Blob into a Sadistic Choice to either beat the clock and stop his plan to brainwash all of Raydia, or lose precious time through rescuing some Graydian astronauts trapped in an orbital habitat set to detonate. Do the former, and you'll be given a cutscene showing the habitat with all its hostages blowing up in detail while Blob watches on in horror. Do the latter, and Comrade Black will taunt you about your failure to save everyone else on the planet. Even worse is that he pulls this gambit three separate times throughout the level.
• Porting Disaster:
  • The PC version of de Blob 2 has an audio bug where if Blob gets inked he keeps making disgust noises indefinitely until you either die or reload the current stage. Thankfully fans have since figured out how to fix this by editing one of the sound files.
  • The PC and 8th gen versions of de Blob 2 have sound issues in the FMV cutscenes as their original surround audio was not converted properly resulting in certain audio channels that contained additional background sounds and voices either sounding too quiet or being missing all together.
  • The Nintendo Switch version of de Blob 2 is also locked at 30 fps with potential stuttering despite the original 7th gen versions all running at a near flawless 60 fps.
• Realism-Induced Horror: The original game had a simple and Saturday-Morning Cartoon-like story about the INKT Corporation taking over Chroma City through brute force over a single cutscene, with any references to real-life authoritarian regimes or political uprisings mostly being done in a tongue-in-cheek manner (the INKT leader being named "Comrade Black", for example). Come de Blob 2, however, and INKT's methods of taking over involve exploiting Prisma City's social problems to build up a cult of followers, and through rigging the local elections to benefit them (the latter is shown to be done in a cartoonish manner, but still). Once they take power, INKT proceeds to declare immediate martial law, imprison poll workers and their political opponents, override the city's news broadcasts with their own propaganda, and attempt to quash protests from students— all of which is more in-line with what happens when authoritarian regimes in the real world take over and attempt to silence any calls for democracy and freedom. To drive the point home, there's a moment where a single Raydian stands opposite to a line of INKT tanks pointed in their direction, in a scene clearly meant to be reminiscent of the famous "Tank Man" photo taken from the Tiananmen Square Massacre.
• Self-Imposed Challenge:
  • The first game contains a "Free Paint" mode, in which there are no missions requiring you to paint buildings certain colors. So, naturally, let's see if you can paint all the buildings in each level brown...
  • The sequel has an upgrade system introduced, and as such you might be encourages to go for a Minimalist Run.
• Tear Jerker: A meta example. Months after the sequel was released, Blue Tongue sadly announced that the studio would shut down due to THQ's financial difficulties at the time. The last thing the studio posted on their now defunct website? A picture of Blob watching the sunset.
• That One Level: The Blanc Cola Cannery/Soda Falls from the second game. It's one of the longest levels in the game, the environments look similar to the point where it makes them hard to navigate, the many Z-jumps and transport pipes that should allow you to more easily move between sections don't allow you to see where you're going, and the later parts of the level are filled with pitfalls that'll kill you instantly if you fall into them.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • The Inky Marshalls, who only appear briefly in the Comrade Black University's intro cutscene. They control the different areas of Prisma City, so one would think they would make great bosses for each level. Alas, that didn't happen.
  • In addition, there's also Dr. Von Blot, the Big Bad in the DS game. He only has a functional role in said game, causing a missed opportunity of making him the The Dragon for Comrade Black.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: Most of the cityscapes are nice to look once cleaned all up, but most breathtaking visuals in the series would definitely have to be in the Astral Finale in the sequel, where you'll have the pleasure of witnessing a downright gorgeous outer space backdrop.
• Waggle: The first game's original release maps its jump function to shaking the Wii Remote, and requires a degree of precision when wall jumping that is nearly impossible to achieve with this control scheme. The sequel and re-releases of the first game fix this by moving the jump function to a button across all platforms, though this also takes out the satisfaction of using it to slam enemies or shake up landmarks.
• What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: Despite both games having a PEGI 3 rating, the second game in particular deals with some surprisingly non kid-friendly subjects, like cults, voter fraud, and the disturbingly realistic portrayal of a democratic country being taken over by an authoritarian regime. In terms of more direct horror, the Ink monster from the Inky Fabricator level is a multi-eyed, semi-mechanical Omnicidal Maniac guaranteed to give kids nightmares, and in the final level, choosing not to save the Bus Full of Innocents results in a lovely cutscene where you watch the orbital habitat full of innocent people explode on-screen.
• The Woobie: The Graydians. They are Raydians who have been drained of color and happiness, forced into suits that severely limit their movement, and subjected to menial labor and endless torment by INKT Corporation. You can even hear them moaning in despair. Makes you want to save the poor guys as fast as possible.

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