Hello and welcome back to my blog!
I saw @cocacolaron praising this retro-styled platformer called the Messenger, which made me want to play it. I love a good side scrolling 2d platformer, one of my favorite games in this genre is Celeste. So, I decided to give the Messenger a shot.
You are a Ninja who got tasked to deliver a scroll across a map full of dangers. It seems to be heavily inspired by the retro games, having 8-bit aesthetics and simpler controls. I loved the second jump mechanic, where you get a new jump after you hit an enemy or an item. This leads to some clever puzzles, too.
The game slowly introduces new abilities and mechanics like a grappling hook, claws to climb up walls etc. This slowly adds to the complexity but nothing too hard so far.
One of the best parts of the game is the addictive music, which fits perfectly with each and every area. One of the best retro-inspired soundtracks I have heard. The other best part is the writing. There is an NPC who sells you stuff and tells you more about your quests. He is the shopkeeper, and the interaction with him is really funny. He even makes fun of these types of games and does a lot of fourth-wall-breaking stuff.
The interaction with the cabinet and his little stories. Usually, I don't like long texts back and forth; they break my flow, and I just skip through them whenever I can. But with this game, I was going and clicking on every place just to get some more dialogue out of this shopkeeper.
I loved annoying him in so many ways. This is what I expect from a game, not some boring block of text, but something which adds a lot of character to the game. Even the death screen has some funny comments.
There are bosses at the end of most regions. The shopkeeper can sometimes give you tips about them, too, or just some lore about those enemies.
As you can already tell from my writing that the game doesn't take itself very seriously. Some of the boss fights are funny, too. You will have a glimpse of the boss when you are clearing levels in the Catacombs. The might Ruxxtin is seen holding a sceptre. We met him at the end of the level.
Look at this hilarious boss intro that will surely make you laugh.
He and his Sceptre are two individual personalities, and they are always arguing. This fight wasn't too tough, but one of the most memorable in gaming.
Once we defeat him, he chooses to quit his evil side. But the sceptre wanted to continue his evil path. Too bad it had no movement abilities, so it had to accept Ruxxtin's decision not to be evil from now on.
There are some collectable green coins called the Power Seals. A total of 45 of such seals can be collected that are going to open a chest in the shopkeeper's shop. But these are not easy to get and are much more challenging than the rest of the game.
There are more memorable characters like the two giant brothers who were not easy to beat and took me some tries.
The Big Twist
When we reached the seemingly final place, we heard the Messenger saying that he is happy to reach the end of this adventure. And the shopkeeper chuckles and replies that clearly you haven't seen the trailer.
I haven't seen the trailer so I also thought it was the end of the game. Maybe this will be the final boss, but it turned out, the game was just about to open up to a lot of new possibilities.
Up to this point, the game was very linear. A retro-styled 2d precision platformer with super nice music and humour. Nothing exceptional, but not bad either. But the game now switched genres and surprised me a lot. I won't spoil it much, but I had not seen that coming. Suddenly, I am playing a Metroidvania and have to recall all the levels I had not paid attention to.
Remember the scroll we were carrying? It was a map of the entire place, and we were mocking the shopkeeper for not even opening it up this entire time lol. There is a time travel twist, and you can travel in the future, which unlocks new pathways and items. So, it was time to travel back. I thought the game was done in just 5-6 hours, but nope, this is going to take a lot longer, it seems.
I am enjoying every part of the adventure so far. I will surely talk more about this interesting game in my upcoming posts. All the bosses need to be talked about in detail. I am impressed so far.
- All the content is mine unless otherwise stated.
- Screenshots are from the game, The Messenger.