The Messenger Review

Sometimes a game comes out with a ton of fanfare, but ultimately lets everybody down. This is not one of those games. The Messenger earns every ounce of excitement, and praise preemptively thrown its way. Nearly everything about this one is so on point you can stop reading, and buy the game. In the words of Triple H, it is “That damn good.”

PROS: Sprite work. Controls. Music. Story. Humor. Nearly everything really.

CONS: A bug that makes a certain section of the game nearly impossible to solve.

NINJA GAIDEN: The original NES designers were invited to play it, and loved it.

The Messenger was largely advertised as a love letter to the trilogy of NES Ninja Gaiden games. Upon booting up the game it’s easy to see why. The action, cinema screens, wall climbing, and secondary weapon throwing are obviously influenced by those classics. Devolver Digital even had the two lead designers of Ninja Gaiden play their demo before release as they couldn’t wait to see their reaction.

But while The Messenger would have likely done well enough as a mere homage, that wasn’t good enough for the team at Sabotage. The Messenger does so much more than mimic one of gaming’s best action platform games. It uses that formula as one small piece in a much, much larger puzzle. A puzzle that will likely take you hours to solve.

The Messenger centers around a Ninja clan that gets attacked by monsters. As one of the Ninjas, you’re chastised by your sensei for not taking your training seriously. You’re told a super warrior is supposed to save the day, but unfortunately for everyone this person doesn’t show up in time. The monsters wipe out the village, and you’re about to be destroyed when they show up just in time. The enemies retreat, and this warrior gives you a scroll. You’re told to deliver the scroll to the top of a mountain, and so you go on your way.

I won’t go into the rest of the surprisingly deep, and convoluted storyline here. But rest assured it is quite good. Filled with twists, turns, and even a lot of sardonic humor. I laughed a lot at the various jokes throughout my time with the campaign. But at the same time, I was pleasantly surprised at just how invested in the overall story I became. Plus the gameplay ties into everything very nicely. When the game begins, it truly will remind you of the NES Ninja Gaiden games. You have a similar run speed. You have similar jumping physics. You’ll even have a sense of familiarity as you can climb certain walls.

But The Messenger throws in its own entirely new mechanics that set it decidedly apart from Ninja Gaiden. Most notably the extra jump you can get by killing enemies, or hitting specific targets. If you get the timing right, you can jump, hit a target, and jump immediately after to get extra air. You can also gain momentum by repeating the process on subsequent targets. This allows you to kind of hop distances between targets, and get through areas faster.  As you progress, the game makes mastering this technique essential, as it begins throwing in jumping puzzles, as well as highly challenging platforming sections where you’re surrounded by bottomless pits, spikes, or other death traps.

The game goes along much like those old NES action games. You’ll battle your way through a stage, then fight a boss, watch some dialogue boxes, or cinema screens, and move on. However each stage has a few checkpoints after every few gauntlets. Some of these gauntlets are shops, where you can spend the diamond shards you find on upgrades for your ninja. Some of these give you more resistance to damage. Some of these give you more attack power.

Over time you’ll also acquire new abilities like a wind suit, and grappling hook. And later in the game you’ll need them because stages are built around their use. It’s crafted so well, and so engrossing you’ll want to keep playing until you get to the final showdown with the demon army, and win the day. Throughout it all, you’ll be blown away at the NES inspired sprite work, and Famicom-esque chip tunes. It’s nothing short of amazing, and you’ll love every minute of it.

Another interesting mechanic is that while old school, this is another game that ditches lives. Instead of dying a set number of times, or having a limited set of continues, you simply keep playing. Now the original first two Ninja Gaiden games on the NES had unlimited continues. However this game does something a bit different. When you die, a little red bookie monster shows up. He steals any money you make until his debt for respawning you is paid. So while the game becomes more forgiving, at the same time you do well for not dying. Because not dying means more money, and more money means getting all of the items, and upgrades sooner.

When you finally defeat the Demon army’s second in command you’ll probably do what I did. Think there’s one last stage where your endurance, and cunning are pushed to the proverbial limit. Then one grandiose boss fight, and a satisfying finish. Well this is one part of the game I have to spoil in order to talk about the entire package. I’m not giving away details, just know that nothing could be further from the truth. The game basically comes out, and yells “Surprise! Now you’re going to play a Metroid clone!” The game really opens up at this point, and connects every stage you’ve played together. This makes one overarching world, and you’ll be sent throughout it.

However, The Messenger does not go sending you on power up fetch quests, in order access the new areas. Rather, you have to go find items that act as keys, and find NPCs to further the story. You can buy map markers in the shops, but even then, getting to those places is going to be very intimidating when you first attempt it. These new areas are filled with new traps, and puzzles. There are also challenge rooms where you can try to get these green tokens. If you find every one of them in the game there’s a surprise waiting for you. But that’s not even the best part.

The Messenger also adds a dash of stage morphing. It may just remind you of Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams, although it isn’t done in the same way. The storyline adds an element of time travel, where you go through portals that send you 500 years into the future. And then other ones send you back. When you go into the future, the 8-bit NES aesthetics change to 16-bit Super NES aesthetics! The music also goes from sounding like the Famicom, to sounding like the Super Famicom, and Mega Drive decided to go on tour together. The soundtrack in this game immediately skyrockets from a pretty great one, to an absolutely stellar one. Not only that, but the game uses the time travel mechanic in some pretty intricate ways. Like Metroid Prime 2: Echoes did, The Messenger will make you go to one area of the map in the present, go through a portal to the future, so that you’ll come out in the right place in a different section of the map. Then you’ll go through a portal there to come back in the present where you’ll meet an NPC, or find a room with a green token challenge. Or something else entirely.

The story also begins to get both more interesting, and more cryptic when you discover a hub section, and you’re discovering entirely new areas that were never part of a previous linear stage from the first act of the game. They’ve done a terrific job with all of this, and that’s before you even get to the impressive boss encounters that follow. They make the early bosses you may have found difficult seem like you were lifting feathers before. But it does this by easing you over time without you even realizing it. It’s an action game, that becomes an adventure game, that implements a feeling you get when playing an RPG.

And I think that’s probably the best thing about The Messenger. It’s like you’re playing two completely different games back to back. You played Ninja Gaiden II: The Dark Sword Of Chaos. But instead of credits, a dying Jaquio goes “It’s not over. You have to defeat Mother Brain now, or the world will end! Ha. Ha. Ha.” The fact that it makes you feel elated, rather than angry is quite the feat.

So with all of that said, is this a 10 out of 10 game that will forever be the title future indie games are held to as a standard? Not quite. Though it is very impressive, and should be something you should buy I had one major problem with it. At one point in the game there is a section where you have to navigate an area by listening for sound. Well for whatever reason, the game would not play the sound properly. It made finding my way through a complete crapshoot. I had to guess my way through as if I were playing the final stage of Super Mario Bros. And while this isn’t something that breaks the game, as you can still get through it. It does ruin the intended experience of hearing what you need to hear in the place you need to hear it in order to follow the right path. I’m sure in time they may fix it with a patch. But as it stands it’s just enough to keep me from calling it near flawless.

Still, if you were hoping for a wonderful homage to Ninja Gaiden, you’ll get it. If you were hoping for something more than a wonderful homage to Ninja Gaiden you’ll get it. The Messenger truly is one of the best games to come out this year, and is something you really ought to check out. It’s one of the most engrossing games you’ll play this year. As impressive as the trailers may be, it’s still the kind of game you have to see to believe. Go buy The Messenger now. Even if you’re just stumbling upon this review 500 years from now.

Final Score: 9.5 out of 10

Axiom Verge Review

Wow. Just wow. This is one of the most impressive games I’ve played through in a while. It would be easy to write Axiom Verge off as a Metroid clone. Because when you get down to brass tacks, it is. It drops you in a map, and forces you to explore. Forces you to find the exit, only to tell you you’ll have to go back to that area to get something later on. The thing is there are but a mere handful of examples of games that tried to do something a Nintendo game did, and did it well. There are even fewer that have managed to do it as well. Especially this well.

Axiom Verge has. This game feels like it could actually fit in the Metroid universe somehow, or that you could call it Super Duper Metroid, and that it is the successor to Metroid fusion. Metroid fans would be completely okay with that. That isn’t an exaggeration or hyperbole here. It is seriously THAT good.

PROS: Spot on labyrinthine level design. Pixel Art. Chip tunes.

CONS: Not the most original story. (But still good!)

SECRETS: Who knew nostalgia could be so trippy?

I could end the review with that introduction. It really does live up to the hype it has had for almost a year. But a lot of you who missed it, or have been on the fence, or for those who are skeptical you might need more. Axiom Verge is the tale of a scientist who is transported to another world when his experiment goes awry, and his lab explodes. If that sounds a bit familiar it’s because that is also the setup to Eric Chahi’s Another World (a.k.a. Out Of This World). But beyond the initial intro, it is a completely different narrative than that game’s. You’ll meet other characters while heading back, and forth through areas who give you a little bit of back story. But they also don’t spell everything out for you either. Your character asks questions, tries to figure out where he is, and in the process some key things are revealed. But the details are kept vague. Not everything is revealed, even when you finish the game.  But the characters do get enough development that you can at least get behind them, and they are memorable. Notably the giant mechanical beings you’re introduced to. All of them become more important toward the end of the final act.

That said, the story isn’t the strongest part of the game.  Although it is told better than many game stories. Still, you’ll see a lot of inspiration from stories you’ve seen in other mediums. But like the game it writes a love letter to, it lets the gameplay tell the bulk of the story, and it’s better for it. You can take your time, and try to really find every possible item, or secret. You can try to rush through to the end as fast as possible. In fact, Axiom Verge even has a speed run mode. Of course, choosing it shuts off one of the really cool features in the game.

The boss fights are another area where the game really excels The sprite scaling does a wonderful job of showing you the scope of any given battle, while throwing you into a situation where you have to act fast. But in doing so you have to analyze the situation. “Do I have the right tools for this fight?” “Is there a discernible pattern?” “Is there something in the background I should be paying attention to?” You’ll have a limited amount of time to ponder these questions because once you’re in a boss chamber it’s sink or swim.

Not only does the game have a large number of areas to explore, there are secret areas beyond those. These areas actually kind of screw with your mind a bit, because of a really cool set of visual effects. When you get near one of these areas, the game’s graphics will suddenly add scan lines much like you’d find playing old games on a 30-year-old standard definition television set. Get a little closer to find the brightness, and contrast will change. Actually go into one of these areas, and things can even become a bit surreal. Moreover going into these areas usually hides an item or a power up you’ll probably want.

 

Interestingly, the game will  increase the number of these secret areas depending on the difficulty you choose to play, with the easiest setting giving you the fewest, and the hardest setting giving you the most. Do note if you play the speed run mode you can’t get into any of these areas when playing that mode. Speaking of the graphics, these are some of the nicest retro-themed visuals of their type. They’re on par with games like Shovel Knight most of the time, and sometimes even exceeds them. But where it really stands out, are some of the eerie character, and object designs. They both clash, and fit in with the rest of the game’s art style. It looks really good.

The visual cues of the secret areas, also tie into the game’s story somewhat. Over the course of the game these  secret areas, and even some normal areas will be blocked by garbled graphics. These look comparable to what you’d see on your television if you put in a dirty cartridge into an old game system. At some point you can find a power up that lets you clean up these graphics, in order to enter these areas. it ties into one of the details of the story too. If you do find yourself really invested in the storyline, there are also a number of journal entries, and logs hidden throughout the game as well.

The game also has an amazing soundtrack, with a lot of different influences felt throughout the game. Like Metroid, each of the areas in Axiom Verge have their own particular background music. You’ll hear Industrial Synth in one section. New Wave in another, Electronic Tribal in yet another, Synth Pop in yet another, and so on. Most of this music is very memorable too. Even though much of it is ambient, fitting the scope of the game’s world, you may find yourself hearing it hours later. In your mind, as an ear worm on loop. If you find you really enjoy the music, you can purchase the soundtrack as well.

There is an immense level of replay value here. With over 20 weapons, items, data logs, you’re probably not going to see everything on your first play through. Between these, and the secret areas in the game you can easily spend days playing it before finding everything. Then factor in the speed run challenge, and that’s even more play time.

But the most impressive thing about the game is that it was all made by one person in their spare time. Thomas Happ deserves all of the praise he has received for this game. It is an amazing feat when one considers how much is crammed into this 175 megabyte folder. To put that into perspective, Super Metroid had at least ten people working on it. Sure, one could argue it’s easier now to make a game like this than it was in 1994, But the amount of effort, and care put into this title really shows.

I really couldn’t find much fault with anything during my play through. Sure the story borrows from other tales a bit. But it isn’t a bad story. It might be a Metroid clone, but it’s a damn good Metroid clone.  One that frankly still does plenty enough to set itself apart from Metroid. Functionally, I never had a crash, everything performed well, and I never saw a glitch in nearly 16 hours of play time. The PC version also has some basic options that can be toggled if you have a fairly old computer.

Axiom Verge really does live up to the lofty praise it has gotten. It’s simply a must play game whether you choose to play it on a PlayStation 4 or a computer. The game is also coming soon to the Wii U with some enhancements for the game pad. This is a game that I highly recommend you pick up. It’s interesting, fun, and will keep you busy for a while.

Final Score: 10/10