GAME REVIEW: The Messenger (2018)
If you’re in the Steam gaming scene, you’ve likely heard about The Messenger, an extremely well-rated 2018 video game from Sabotage Studio and Devolver Digital (known for making another great game, Enter the Gungeon). The game was recently ported over to the PSN, so we picked it up.
Following a traditional platforming format, the game has two iterations, the first in 8-bit and the second in 16-bit. Without giving any spoilers, the game follows the main character, a ninja, as he delivers a scroll to the top of the mountain in order to keep the demon army at bay. However, much like Final Fantasy X and many other tales before and after it, the usual status quo is not enough and the messenger’s journey continues. And what a journey it is!
The game starts off very simply teaching you the basic mechanics of the game and you are introduced to the shopkeeper, a sarcastic fellow who is there to help you throughout your journey and upgrade your skills and abilities. Be sure to check out his wardrobe as there is some excellent philosophy to be learned by doing so. He also tells awesome stories, so chatting with him as much as possible is definitely recommended.
The difficulty level is fairly appropriate. In the 15-or-so hours it took me to play through the game (plus the other few hours tacked on to get the platinum trophy), my left thumb went numb and my right thumb developed a nasty callous. It’s a ferociously addictive game that you may not be able to stop once you start it. Bosses are tricky but not impossible and the harder skill challenges are done via green seals collected from hidden or semi-hidden rooms.
The dialogue is snappy and fun, unexpected, and does its best to subvert expectations and tropes, while making fun of its own tropes all the while; it’s extremely self-aware in the best sort of way. Design-wise, the artwork is spectacular in both 8- and 16-bit iterations and mechanically, the game plays smoothly, save for there being too many moves attached to the jump button, creating some muddled confusion in tricky no-floor situations (the jump button also has the cloud jump and the wingsuit, hence the trouble, as the cloud jump hits forward but the wingsuit hits down… just take my word that it gets messy in tricky situations). Also, the game has often caused me to start raging and screaming bullhonkey! because I am sure that I hit the target but the game thought otherwise and then I died. The ending is a bit of a surprise and could have been foreshadowed a bit better, but otherwise it was a fun final battle.
Apart from the minor flaws in the mechanics, however, I was utterly impressed by the game. It was fun, it was a good length, it was beautiful, and it has an over-the-top chiptune soundtrack by American musician rainbowdragoneyes. I’ve never been able to fully get behind his regular albums but the style fits The Messenger perfectly and is exactly what you need in the background for a game like this.
Ultimately, it was a great game that I highly recommend it if you’re looking to kill a weekend or a few hours here and there, but don’t want a longer commitment. Even the platinum trophy didn’t take too much time to achieve so completionists won’t have too much trouble.
