Continuing playing through Metroidvanias I've gotten for free on PC over the past few months, I played through The Messenger this weekend as well as the free DLC pack that was added in a while after release. It's a game that's really fun to play and an excellent addition to the string of retro-inspired action games over the past few years, even if it isn't my favorite out of all of those. It took me around 8.5 hours to 100% the main game with an Xbox One controller on my PC, and another 2 hours to 100% the DLC.
The Messenger is the story of a ninja tasked with carrying a scroll to the top of a glacier on the edge of his island to fulfill a prophecy after his village is destroyed by the Demon King. Only after arriving at the end of the island, however, does it get revealed that The Messenger is only one in a long line of Messengers who have been carrying out this same task throughout time, putting off annihilation by the demons time and again forever, and it's up to your particular Messenger to help defeat that cycle once and for all.
The writing is definitely closer to something like Guacamelee 2 than a Hollow Knight or Timespinner (or heck, even Guacamelee 1). There are some solid character traits to the few characters that are there, but most of them just amount to being 4th-wall breaking and quirky. I found the humor in the game, while often clever, was so omnipresent in all the dialogue that it was usually more annoying than actually enjoyable (especially by the greed demon who brings you back to life). The narrative overall has a decent bit of interesting (if a bit gratuitous at times) lore, but isn't really trying to do that much in the end other than give a fairly archetypal story of good triumphing over evil. Not an outright bad thing, but definitely something worth mentioning.
The gameplay of The Messenger is where things really shine, at least for the most part. The game starts off in a more 8-bit-inspired graphics style with music to match, and those sections largely compose of linear action-platforming segments. Once you get around the 8th stage or so, you hit a time warp and travel forward in time 500 years and the graphics and music change to a 16-bit style, and then after a few more stages the gameplay also transitions to a Metroidvania instead of being linear.
I don't think the game is nearly as solid a Metroidvania as it is an action game, though. The bosses and the stage flow of the linear sections are really great, but once you get to the Metroidvania part, it feels a lot more like backtracking around a lot rather than exploration (due in no small part to how annoying the game's warps are placed). It's luckily not usually too hard to figure out where to go (save for one section about getting through an underwater Lost Woods-type area), but the game slows down a LOT in the Metroidvania section, and that was fairly disappointing. It's still not a bad Metroidvania, but it's a shame the game's main gimmick of "linear action game that becomes a Metroidvania" seems to not really stick the landing very well.
The gameplay and bosses really are great though. The game's main gimmick is introduced from the prologue in that you get another jump when you land a hit in the air, and there's no limit to the number of times you can do this. This makes for some really wild platforming potential as you get more upgrades to your moveset, both optional and non-optional. Some of the optional ones (particularly the ability to attack while you do the glide) feel like the break the intended flow of the game a little bit, and A both activating your glide and de-activating it AND jumping can make the precision of some challenge rooms a real pain, but the gameplay still feels really good to go through, especially once you've got some practice at it.
The game has a fair amount of challenge rooms and optional content you can go for if you're feeling up for a challenge, and they're usually pretty fair and nice challenges. Sometimes they're maddeningly difficult, and the hardest of them easily make up the most difficult sections in the game. That said, they're totally optional and only unlock a sidegrade (granted it's a very good sidegrade) for your shuriken, and none of them are nearly so hard as the most difficult optional areas of Hollow Knight (to give one example). I loved tracking them down, and it was always super satisfying to finally conquer one.
The music and graphics are also great, but I also think that that's an unevenly split level of quality. The 8-bit graphics and music far surpass the 16-bit stuff for various reasons. It may just be down to hearing most all of the 8-bit stuff before you hear the 16-bit versions of it, but I didn't like any of the 16-bit (more Mega Drive-esque) tracks as well as their 8-bit counterparts. I'm also not a huge fan of the 16-bit stage designs largely because of how they force you to relearn the visual language of the game in a fairly hamfisted way. The game is full of wall-mounted objects (usually lanterns of some kind) that you can slash for a jump in mid-air, and the 8-bit sections usually have these hanging in untextured (or lightly textured) backgrounds. The 16-bit sections are much brighter and have much more involved backgrounds, and they make these wall-mounted objects much harder to see, especially going back through areas you've been through once before. The game is still beautiful and very pretty to look at, but the 16-bit sections feel like they prioritized aesthetics over function at some point and the game suffers a little for it.
The Picnic Panic DLC is unlocked once you beat the game's main story, and you can access it from the game's shop. In an alternate universe, The Messenger of that world hasn't been doing so hot, so you've gotta step in to go in their stead to a tropical island off the coast. This is a really good add-on to the main game that has another dozen or so collectibles across two new mostly-linear areas. There's a fun new surfing mini-game, as well as what is definitely the hardest proper boss in the game, and even a Punch Out-style final boss battle just for funsies. It flows really well into the rest of the existing content, and the writing is all-around a little tighter and better than the main game (although not by any great margin, I just liked the humor here more). It's definitely worth checking out if you enjoyed the main game, and is an absolutely stellar piece of free content.
Verdict: Highly Recommended. For all the small faults I may find with it, I'd be damned if I said I didn't really enjoy my time with The Messenger. It's not quite Shovel Knight, but it's still an amazingly fun action game and a pretty darn good Metroidvania. It's challenging but still forgiving, and it's well worth the purchase if you like either of those genres.
The Messenger is the story of a ninja tasked with carrying a scroll to the top of a glacier on the edge of his island to fulfill a prophecy after his village is destroyed by the Demon King. Only after arriving at the end of the island, however, does it get revealed that The Messenger is only one in a long line of Messengers who have been carrying out this same task throughout time, putting off annihilation by the demons time and again forever, and it's up to your particular Messenger to help defeat that cycle once and for all.
The writing is definitely closer to something like Guacamelee 2 than a Hollow Knight or Timespinner (or heck, even Guacamelee 1). There are some solid character traits to the few characters that are there, but most of them just amount to being 4th-wall breaking and quirky. I found the humor in the game, while often clever, was so omnipresent in all the dialogue that it was usually more annoying than actually enjoyable (especially by the greed demon who brings you back to life). The narrative overall has a decent bit of interesting (if a bit gratuitous at times) lore, but isn't really trying to do that much in the end other than give a fairly archetypal story of good triumphing over evil. Not an outright bad thing, but definitely something worth mentioning.
The gameplay of The Messenger is where things really shine, at least for the most part. The game starts off in a more 8-bit-inspired graphics style with music to match, and those sections largely compose of linear action-platforming segments. Once you get around the 8th stage or so, you hit a time warp and travel forward in time 500 years and the graphics and music change to a 16-bit style, and then after a few more stages the gameplay also transitions to a Metroidvania instead of being linear.
I don't think the game is nearly as solid a Metroidvania as it is an action game, though. The bosses and the stage flow of the linear sections are really great, but once you get to the Metroidvania part, it feels a lot more like backtracking around a lot rather than exploration (due in no small part to how annoying the game's warps are placed). It's luckily not usually too hard to figure out where to go (save for one section about getting through an underwater Lost Woods-type area), but the game slows down a LOT in the Metroidvania section, and that was fairly disappointing. It's still not a bad Metroidvania, but it's a shame the game's main gimmick of "linear action game that becomes a Metroidvania" seems to not really stick the landing very well.
The gameplay and bosses really are great though. The game's main gimmick is introduced from the prologue in that you get another jump when you land a hit in the air, and there's no limit to the number of times you can do this. This makes for some really wild platforming potential as you get more upgrades to your moveset, both optional and non-optional. Some of the optional ones (particularly the ability to attack while you do the glide) feel like the break the intended flow of the game a little bit, and A both activating your glide and de-activating it AND jumping can make the precision of some challenge rooms a real pain, but the gameplay still feels really good to go through, especially once you've got some practice at it.
The game has a fair amount of challenge rooms and optional content you can go for if you're feeling up for a challenge, and they're usually pretty fair and nice challenges. Sometimes they're maddeningly difficult, and the hardest of them easily make up the most difficult sections in the game. That said, they're totally optional and only unlock a sidegrade (granted it's a very good sidegrade) for your shuriken, and none of them are nearly so hard as the most difficult optional areas of Hollow Knight (to give one example). I loved tracking them down, and it was always super satisfying to finally conquer one.
The music and graphics are also great, but I also think that that's an unevenly split level of quality. The 8-bit graphics and music far surpass the 16-bit stuff for various reasons. It may just be down to hearing most all of the 8-bit stuff before you hear the 16-bit versions of it, but I didn't like any of the 16-bit (more Mega Drive-esque) tracks as well as their 8-bit counterparts. I'm also not a huge fan of the 16-bit stage designs largely because of how they force you to relearn the visual language of the game in a fairly hamfisted way. The game is full of wall-mounted objects (usually lanterns of some kind) that you can slash for a jump in mid-air, and the 8-bit sections usually have these hanging in untextured (or lightly textured) backgrounds. The 16-bit sections are much brighter and have much more involved backgrounds, and they make these wall-mounted objects much harder to see, especially going back through areas you've been through once before. The game is still beautiful and very pretty to look at, but the 16-bit sections feel like they prioritized aesthetics over function at some point and the game suffers a little for it.
The Picnic Panic DLC is unlocked once you beat the game's main story, and you can access it from the game's shop. In an alternate universe, The Messenger of that world hasn't been doing so hot, so you've gotta step in to go in their stead to a tropical island off the coast. This is a really good add-on to the main game that has another dozen or so collectibles across two new mostly-linear areas. There's a fun new surfing mini-game, as well as what is definitely the hardest proper boss in the game, and even a Punch Out-style final boss battle just for funsies. It flows really well into the rest of the existing content, and the writing is all-around a little tighter and better than the main game (although not by any great margin, I just liked the humor here more). It's definitely worth checking out if you enjoyed the main game, and is an absolutely stellar piece of free content.
Verdict: Highly Recommended. For all the small faults I may find with it, I'd be damned if I said I didn't really enjoy my time with The Messenger. It's not quite Shovel Knight, but it's still an amazingly fun action game and a pretty darn good Metroidvania. It's challenging but still forgiving, and it's well worth the purchase if you like either of those genres.