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The first console video game I taught my five-year-old daughter to play was flOw, and when the expansion for it launched last week I jumped on it immediately. With the promise of a new creature type, a new set of levels for it to work through, and the ability to have each player choose a different creature when playing together — which my daughter and I do — how could it go wrong?

What I found, though, is an expansion that has a significantly different tone and feel from the rest of the game, and one that I don’t think I like all that much.

The background for the expansion holds one minor surprise. It wasn’t developed by ThatGameCompany, who originally announced it, it was developed by SuperVillain Studios. After installing the expansion it replaces the existing fl0w icon in the XMB with a “flOw expansion” icon and adds a nice blue-background effect when hovering over it. I don’t blame SuperVillain for the expansion — Sony does have to approve the idea and its final form before publishing it — it’s just something I didn’t expect to see.

The new creature type is decidedly aggressive. It has jagged teeth in its center-placed mouth and when a button is pushed instead of dashing as other creatures do or fading out to avoid attack, its outer ring parts flip sideways and spin, becoming a buzzsaw-like blade. This by itself is very different from the character of the other fl0w creatures.

While ordinary gamers can take this in stride, my daughter found it hard to understand what was happening and why she would want to spin the blades instead of just floating around and nipping at the other creatures to make her way through the levels. Incidentally the levels that come with the new creature are also a bit tougher, perhaps to encourage use of the blade attack.

Expansions are always tricky propositions. Typically they are either More Of The Same — which is not necessarily a bad thing if the original title was well-received (as Wombat on the CAGCast would say) — or it changes up the formula to add something new. SuperVillain took the latter route, but flOw’s appeal rested on its original formula of soothing music, fluid-themed visuals, and relaxed gameplay. People like me who enjoyed the title for those reasons weren’t looking for the introduction of a Wolverine-style creature and tougher levels to challenge it.

That said, I’m willing to take the good with the bad to gain the multiplayer features the expansion has to offer. I can always guide my daughter to choose a different creature at the main menu when starting up the game so we can play as fish or jellyfish or long worm-like creatures as we did before. I haven’t yet tried out the screen capture feature, either.

I give the flOw Expansion 4 out of 5 Aeropausonauts.

See also:
flOw Expansion and flOwer Coming From ThatGameCompany
flOw Is Nearly A Breathtaking Exclusive Experience

Image from Gamespot.