The Messenger is pretty neat, with great chiptuney music, impressive pixel art and tight gameplay, it’s a Ninja Gaiden-esque love letter that evolves into an interesting dual-world metroidvania after you think the game might be over. I was turned off by the writing of the game, which kinda clashed with the overall themes, but still had a pretty good time with it!
The game starts pretty quickly with your character being tasked to carry a scroll across the world, slashing enemies, jumping over pits and collecting time crystals to unlock upgrades along the way. A core mechanic of the game is that whenever you slash something, you get an extra jump, and the game does a lot with this, weaving this idea into its platforming puzzles and boss fights pretty well. You soon get access to upgrades and use your time crystals across a small but interesting skill tree to improve your character in various ways, like health, projectile attacks, map improvements, and so on.
While the intro of the game is a pretty straightforward tale of revenge against the demon king and the quest of being The Messenger, it quickly devolves into references, memes and fourth-wall breaking dialogue that frankly could’ve been left out. I understand wanting to try something else for your mood, but why grab that low hanging fruit? I haven’t seen the most egregious offender, but I can believe it’s there.
The game is fairly forgiving even if it’s rife with bottomless pits and high-damage traps. When you die, you respawn at the last checkpoint you’ve found, but for a bit you won’t get anymore time crystals. The bosses are pretty interesting too, some are more on the puzzle side, others are tests of reflexes and quick reactions. No matter which region, underwater, in caves or in castles, the pixel art is stellar.
After you carry the scroll across the world, the game turns into a metroidvania, where you can visit previously explored areas in a “future” state where the graphics and music are a bit more modern. It’s pretty interesting too! Some puzzles require you to move between both states, some paths are only open in one or another, and you get a few new upgrades to help with beating special challenges. I kinda wish you could’ve fast travelled without needing to go back to a shop, but it wasn’t that big of an issue. I had a good time revisiting old locations.
Overall, The Messenger is pretty neat even if the writing wasn’t doing it at all for me. If you’re into Ninja Gaiden-inspired games, or platformers/metroidvanias at all, you could give it a shot!
