This review contains spoilers
While the Messenger was a fun, unique experience, the lackluster story and poorly integrated genre shift halfway through makes the game feel inconsistent and incomplete.
In terms of the gameplay, the weapon and enemy variety was basically nonexistent throughout the whole game, with only a new weapon in the form of a hidden upgrade for collecting everything which will barely get any use outside of the last area. The base gameplay is fun but does get repetitive after a couple of hours. By trying to mix a 2D platformer and Metroidvania, it feels like the level design leaves something to be desired. The level design in first half felt basic to me and the second half, while feeling better due to additional movement upgrades, could have benefited from a few more portals to alleviate backtracking. In comparison to other games inspired classics, it felt also like there were more instances (while small in number) of cheap level design here as well.
The aesthetics, character dialogue, and music were all great with only a few duds in the soundtrack imo. The decision to be able to switch between 8 and 16 bit artsyles at specific points during gameplay, while reminiscent of Guacamelee, is very cool and different enough here to feel unique. I did my best to try and listen to the shopkeepers dialogue whenever I could as almost every tale and piece of info about the world that they had were gems.
I can’t say the same about the story however. While a few moments like the character interactions and reveal of the true nature of the messengers at the tower of time were cool, the lore dump near the end of the game felt like it would have been better to be dispersed between music notes to help pacing. Furthermore, with the strength of the writing being it’s characters I was at least expecting a montage of them during the credits showing what they are doing after the story instead of the joke ending we got. The devs even call it out in the achievement as “The fake ending was better” but it feels more irritating than charming.
All in all, despite the numerous flaws, the decent core gameplay, funny character dialogue, and beautiful 8/16-bit aesthetics add up to make the messenger an enjoyable experience that I think is worth your time if you can get it at a discount or via a subscription. I don’t see myself ever going back to this game though.
In terms of the gameplay, the weapon and enemy variety was basically nonexistent throughout the whole game, with only a new weapon in the form of a hidden upgrade for collecting everything which will barely get any use outside of the last area. The base gameplay is fun but does get repetitive after a couple of hours. By trying to mix a 2D platformer and Metroidvania, it feels like the level design leaves something to be desired. The level design in first half felt basic to me and the second half, while feeling better due to additional movement upgrades, could have benefited from a few more portals to alleviate backtracking. In comparison to other games inspired classics, it felt also like there were more instances (while small in number) of cheap level design here as well.
The aesthetics, character dialogue, and music were all great with only a few duds in the soundtrack imo. The decision to be able to switch between 8 and 16 bit artsyles at specific points during gameplay, while reminiscent of Guacamelee, is very cool and different enough here to feel unique. I did my best to try and listen to the shopkeepers dialogue whenever I could as almost every tale and piece of info about the world that they had were gems.
I can’t say the same about the story however. While a few moments like the character interactions and reveal of the true nature of the messengers at the tower of time were cool, the lore dump near the end of the game felt like it would have been better to be dispersed between music notes to help pacing. Furthermore, with the strength of the writing being it’s characters I was at least expecting a montage of them during the credits showing what they are doing after the story instead of the joke ending we got. The devs even call it out in the achievement as “The fake ending was better” but it feels more irritating than charming.
All in all, despite the numerous flaws, the decent core gameplay, funny character dialogue, and beautiful 8/16-bit aesthetics add up to make the messenger an enjoyable experience that I think is worth your time if you can get it at a discount or via a subscription. I don’t see myself ever going back to this game though.