CubeTales: The Beginning
CubeTales: The Beginning is the first game in the CubeTales series, both in terms of release date and timeline.
Story
The story follows a Cube named Cobalt, who is working for the International Expedition & Archaeological Committee, or IEAC for short. Cobalt has been tasked with investigating strange occurrences all across the planet, from inanimate objects becoming sentient to entire environments morphing into bizarre landscapes. Cobalt learns about rifts connecting to an unknown location, and cites these as the cause of all the strange happenings. Cobalt decides to head to the Crimson City, as that appeared to be where the most destruction had occurred. Upon reaching the downtown of Crimson City, Cobalt encounters a large mech named Axiom. The game ends with Cobalt destroying Axiom and the rifts temporarily closing up.
Gameplay
Players take control of Cobalt, who travels through linear stages to reach the point of interest marked by a flag at the end. These stages are filled with spikes, creatures, and bottomless pits that Cobalt must navigate to reach the end. Cobalt moves at a medium pace on ground, and can jump and use his sword for attacks and mobility, as well as being quite durable. Health pickups can be found scattered around stages and from killing creatures, restoring Cobalt's health and even allowing him to overheal. There are also a variety of relics scattered throughout levels that reward exploration.
Remaster
On June 8th, 2022, a remastered version of CubeTales: The Beginning was announced. After its open beta release on 10/18/2022 the game would remain in active development until approximately May 11th, 2023. The game is currently publicly available to play in a nearly-finished state. The gameplay is significantly more advanced than the original; and unlike the original, the story was actually present in-game through several dialogues. It is distinguished from the current mainline games by having a different, rasterized vector image text in a futuristic font for the logo, loading screen, and menu buttons.
Features
CubeTales: The Beginning Remastered has some features that other games in the series or by the developer(s) don’t:
- The game's advertised mechanic of healing by downward-thrusting on living soda cans.
- Clicking on the game's logo in the main menu will select a random gamemode to play, while the other buttons take you to specific ones.
- The credits is a level where you can move around as Cobalt, as if he is self-reflecting at the end of a long journey.
Trivia
- The original release of the game was abandoned due to the deletion of the email account associated with it, leading to the game being inaccessible for further updates.
- CubeTales 2: Revelations was created from a direct copy of the old release. With the existence of CubeTales: The Beginning Remastered, this makes CubeTales 2 the most dated entry in the series
- A very early draft of the game's story involved Cobalt (then referred to as Cuby) being trapped in a simulation and attempting to break free.