Mystik Belle is the story of a young witch at a school for witches.
One night she's bumped into by a mysterious figure and she's then blamed by the teachers
for ruining some ancient ritual called the err, err Walpurgisnacht Brew.
Anyway she's then told to gather three main ingredients to recreate the brew, otherwise
she gets expelled.
I loved the enemy variety here- in fact it was kind of ridiculous.
There are plenty of enemies that only appear once, or at least in only one room.
So all this time and effort designing these things and they only crop up for a couple
of seconds.
You know they must have had fun thinking up all of these different creatures.
You have classics, like skeletons and Frankenstein's monster.
But then you also have things like giant guinea pigs that shoot lazers.
A dancing Russian bear- although I'm pretty sure there's charities against that sort of
thing.
There's even the creature from the cult classic 'Mystics in Bali', which I never thought I'd
see in a game.
It maybe based upon a ancient Indonesian legend but still, a floating severed head, with the
insides still attached... that's pretty unique.
I even like all of the different quirky teachers and pupils that you come across.
One teacher actually provides a boss fight as a werewolf- which means he probably shouldn't
be around kids.
The school provides a perfect Metroidvania setting, with Gothic dungeons, staircases,
libraries and the nearby village.
You know how in every Metroidvania game you get new moves to access new areas, well, the
new moves here could do with a bit more imagination.
For example, if I told you at the start you only have a single jump, can you guess what
one of the upgrades is going to be?
Yeah, double jump.
The map is quite easy to get around- the only problem is you get this move to turn into
a mouse and sometimes the mouse holes that you travel in can be quite easy to miss.
The controls are sort of sluggish at the start, but they just take some getting used to.
It kind of reminds me of old Game Boy Color days.
I recommend jumping straight into the hard mode- because easy mode, is kind of ridiculously
easy.
I mean look at that, you can just stand there and take hits, and it doesn't exactly do much
damage.
And yeah, I guess I am at max level here, but still.
Speaking of levels, I really liked that every thing you kill earns you XP that levels you
up and increases your health and enhances your magic wand.
It means that, even if you're lost, going round in circles killing the same things over
and over again, at least your earning something and not completely wasting your time.
It's just a shame I maxed out my level pretty early on, but that's probably because I got
stuck way more than I wanted to.
Not on the combat, but on something else- the puzzles.
Now here we're talking old school, adventure style puzzles, where you pick up whole assortment
of nick knacks, and then have to try them in all sorts of different locations to work
out what the game wants you to do.
It started off pretty easy and then it got cryptic.
And here's where it gets tricky- a lot of the items are simply junk.
They do nothing, there just there to confuse you.
Thankfully there is a bin, so if you try an item on the bin and it works, then you know
the item's junk, which is a little helpful.
Also, you can only carry a certain number of things at once, with a magical chest that
you can store excess in, giving a very Resident Evil feel to things.
Just be sure to always keep your hall pass on you, because if you don't then the Grim
Reaper will be out for your blood.
But say you don't know what to do, and you take your, I don't know, 7 items and try them
all on a spot.
Well, if nothing works, then it's back to chest, switch everything around, get a different
7 items then go back to the spot and then try them all again- which is very time consuming.
I challenge anyone to complete this game without getting stuck at least once.
It even pulls some pretty cheap tricks like at one point there's a bucket and mop, and
you use the mop for a puzzle, but the bucket does nothing.
Until all of a sudden much later, you can then can pick up bucket- I think she says
something like "In for a penny in for a pound" or some shit like that, but if you've already
tried bucket before, and it did nothing, then why the hell would you try it again?
This means that, what, now every item may do something different?
That's a pretty cheap way of padding things out.
It just makes you have to do some pointless back tracking.
But overall, I did like the puzzles.
It's an interesting twist, combining the exploration of a Metroidvania game with a with the item
hunting of an adventure game.
It works surprisingly well.
One minute you're figuring things out, and then the next you're fighting- it's a good
mix.
Mystik Belle's got a nice charm to it.
It's got a sense of humour with all the kids saying stuff like dude and awesome.
It maybe a small thing, but they way kids spoke felt natural- making you even crack
a smile every now and then.
I liked that your rival is called the Science Ninja, a character who believes that science
is stronger than magic- which I think's a pretty clever, cool idea and shows a bit of
creativity.
I went in expecting just another baby's first Metroidvania game, but it turned out to be
much better than that.
Right, I think i mentioned Resident Evil once this review, so that's put me in the mood
for another Resident Evil game, which will make it my, what, 9th?
10th this year?
I don't know I lost count.
Thanks for watching!