What a unique experience. I was very impressed with the mature and insightful look into the history and culture around slavery in Brazil, as well as the Mandinga (usually transliterated as Mandinka in modern English) and Yoruba peoples represented by the main characters. The overall narrative was strong and the characters were well written. I really enjoyed the exploration of religion (Islam and Isese), psychology, and clashing cultures between the main characters. These factors alone make the game well worth the time. That said, I feel that I should mention that the game takes an rather unflinching look at slavery -- physical and sexual abuse are both present in the game. I believe these elements were used appropriately, but it's something to be aware of.
The moment to moment gameplay is serviceable. The battle system revolves around building sets of dice for each character and choosing the right one to use each turn. It offers a good amount of customizability given the scope of the game, and I found it to be more engaging than straight up menu based JRPG combat. Random battles are grating, but it was tolerable given the game's short run time.
The pixel art for the moment to moment gameplay is just decent, but I really enjoy the more detailed illustrations that show up in some places such as character portraits, special moves in combat, and dream sequences. These really bring out the game's unique voice.
There are some major QA issues here, though. I was able to walk out of bounds on a couple of occasions, some objects that looked like they should have collision didn't, and so on. The translation was a bit spotty -- the phrasing wasn't quite right and a few things here and there didn't even get translated (e.g. accept and cancel in menus). The button mapping was a mess and misrecognized which button was which on my controller. I was able to sort that out, but it was confusing at first. Some of the sound effects are bad samples that would have stuck out in the 90s. Luckily, none of these basic technical issues impeded my progress through the game or detracted from the overall message and story.
There is one issue that did detract from the experience, though. A narrative split occurs a few hours in. Since the game only keeps a single save file, you'd have to replay the initial shared portion to check out the other side of the split. I'm not interested in doing that, but I am interested in seeing more of the details on the side I didn't choose. Not huge, since I think I could largely infer what happened, but still a bit disappointing.
If you're able to look past the overall lack of polish, Mandinga is absolutely worth experiencing. It'll definitely stick with me for a long time, and, at the end of the day, that's why I love indie games so much.
The moment to moment gameplay is serviceable. The battle system revolves around building sets of dice for each character and choosing the right one to use each turn. It offers a good amount of customizability given the scope of the game, and I found it to be more engaging than straight up menu based JRPG combat. Random battles are grating, but it was tolerable given the game's short run time.
The pixel art for the moment to moment gameplay is just decent, but I really enjoy the more detailed illustrations that show up in some places such as character portraits, special moves in combat, and dream sequences. These really bring out the game's unique voice.
There are some major QA issues here, though. I was able to walk out of bounds on a couple of occasions, some objects that looked like they should have collision didn't, and so on. The translation was a bit spotty -- the phrasing wasn't quite right and a few things here and there didn't even get translated (e.g. accept and cancel in menus). The button mapping was a mess and misrecognized which button was which on my controller. I was able to sort that out, but it was confusing at first. Some of the sound effects are bad samples that would have stuck out in the 90s. Luckily, none of these basic technical issues impeded my progress through the game or detracted from the overall message and story.
There is one issue that did detract from the experience, though. A narrative split occurs a few hours in. Since the game only keeps a single save file, you'd have to replay the initial shared portion to check out the other side of the split. I'm not interested in doing that, but I am interested in seeing more of the details on the side I didn't choose. Not huge, since I think I could largely infer what happened, but still a bit disappointing.
If you're able to look past the overall lack of polish, Mandinga is absolutely worth experiencing. It'll definitely stick with me for a long time, and, at the end of the day, that's why I love indie games so much.