A Look At Mystik Belle, A Different Sort Of Metroidvania

Mystik Belle is an attractive-looking metroidvania with an infusion of adventure game elements that caught my eye. After giving a go, I have a few thoughts to share.

The game puts players in the shoes (specifically, clogs) of a young witch-to-be named Belle on the evening of an important ceremony at her magic academy. The magical brew is sabotaged, our heroine is blamed for it and she is ordered to collect all the rare ingredients again before the night is over in order to make another batch. Armed initially with only low level fire magic and an impish demeanor, Belle has to explore the academy and its surroundings for the missing ingredients. Along the way the plucky lass interacts with an array of eccentric characters, solves puzzles and defeats a variety of bosses.



The familiar metroidvania formula is shaken up a bit with the inclusion of items. It's a bit reminiscent of old point and click adventures in the sense that using the right item at the right place or with the right person triggers an effect. For the most part I enjoyed figuring out situations and puzzles as the game provides a fair share of hints when you show items to characters and try to use the items on different objects. I was only really stumped twice in the game and only one of those times did I feel it was unfair – an item I needed spawned after a sequence of events in a place I had already visited and there was no hint that it was there. The map usually marks where items are in rooms you've already been to, so the inevitable backtracking is less of a hassle. The inclusion of these elements were an agreeable twist to the regular metroidvania formula.

Other than the inclusion of items, gameplay is straightforward. Jump with one button and attack with another. Level up occasionally, getting a stronger attack and larger health bar. Mystik Belle isn't particularly hard to beat for veterans of the genre. I was more troubled by inventory management than any enemy as you have limited space; it gets easier once you unlock warp rooms and you can just dump excess items in those for quick retrieval. As for bosses - once you get their few distinct patterns down, it's just a matter of patience to bring them down. They're varied in execution so these fights didn't feel repetitive at all. Finally, on occasion a few jumps or platforms were a little tricky to do correctly, given the somewhat finicky double jump upgrade and dash, but thankfully there weren't very many places where this was a concern.

I really liked the art and music of the game. Characters and monsters designs are all distinctive and imaginative. Cute, even. I enjoyed every little bit of animation, color and detail in the world that, combined with the quirky humor in dialog and tongue-in-cheek nature of it all, felt really fun to explore. The music is unmistakably in the style of the late 80s and early 90s and sounds like something straight out of an Amiga game. My only complain with the chiptunes is that it could have used a few extra tracks: I eventually became a little tired of hearing the theme in the main area when I had to backtrack.



A recent patch fixed a few bugs here and there and the game runs well, as you would expect from a graphically undemanding game like this. The only irksome thing about the Linux port is the lack of controller support. It seems that only wired Xbox 360 pads will work with it and I couldn't get either of my usual gamepads' input recognized with or without the handy xboxdrv tool. This is unfortunately due to the middleware used by the game engine and is unlikely to change any time soon. I ended up playing through the game only with my keyboard. As there are only a handful of keys to worry about, including movement keys, it wasn't difficult to play. However, those platformer fans looking to play from their couches might not find that a convenient alternative.

Overall, my experiences with the game were positive. It isn't overly long, having taken me around 5 hours to beat the first time (could ostensibly be beaten under an hour if you know the solution to all the puzzles beforehand), and is relatively straightforward without any radical and unexpected changes to gameplay. But whatever it may lack in either length or imaginative abilities, it makes up in charm and personality. It's got both in spades and that alone is enough for me to consider it a fun little gem of a game. Mystik Belle is clearly a labor of love from its developer and, what's more, is easy to recommend to metroidvania fans looking for something different. It may not be particularly ambitious in either scale or complexity but it's certainly an attractive and enjoyable ride.

You can grab Mystik Belle on Steam or grab a DRM-free version through a humble widget on the game's site. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.