Member the games you used to play? We member. The basement at the Hardcore Gamer office has a section known as the Crust Room, with an old grey couch and a big old CRT TV. All the classic systems are down there collecting dust, so in an effort to improve the cleanliness of our work space, we dust off these old consoles every so often and put an old game through its paces, just to make sure everything stays in working order. We even have a beige computer with a floppy disk drive.
There’s no shortage of decent games inspired by the games of last century. Retro games that fully celebrate the ’80s and ’90s that are also remarkable games by modern standards are more difficult to come by.The Messengeris considered one such game that celebrates a past era of gaming while feeling right at home in today’s library. It’s been out for only a few years, but half a decade can be a long time in the gaming landscape, and given how The Messenger is linked to a more recent popular trend, now seems as good a time as any to give it another go and see if it still holds up.
Review: Sea of Stars
Drawing heavily from classic RPGs of past console generations, Sea of Stars creates an exciting new adventure.
John Gaiden and Ray Troid
The Messenger begins in a village of ninjas undergoing their ninja training. The day’s events are interrupted when the Demon King arrives, but before the Demon King can wreak too much havoc, the Western Hero, as foretold by prophecy, arrives and banishes the unwelcome guest. The Western Hero gives a scroll to one of the ninjas and bestows the title of the messenger on him, instructing him to travel east and deliver the scroll to the top of the mountain. The messenger, of course, is the player character, who sets off on his journey to fulfill the orders of the Western Hero. The perilous journey ahead will be aided by a mysterious shopkeeper in blue robes and will be filled with danger, humor and possibly time-travel shenanigans.
The Messenger’s gameplay involves a great deal of platforming challenges and tough boss fights. The platforming sequences are well crafted, requiring the player to make use of abilities such as jumping off walls along with some of the environmental means of conveyance, such as cannons. Some of these sequences can be tricky, but provide a good sense of satisfaction when they are finally completed. Most of the boss fights provide a decent challenge as well, but like the games that inspired The Messenger, the key to the boss battles is rote memorization of their attack patterns. Once the boss’s strategy is figured out, the fight becomes much easier.
The Messenger’s genre changes partway through the campaign. At the beginning, The Messenger is a linear 2D platformer where the messenger is confined to a specific area until he defeats the boss and is able to move on. After a certain point, the graphics shift from 8-bit to 16-bit style, and the gameplay opens up. Instead of being confined to one region, the messenger is free to use all his traversal abilities to travel the world in whatever manner seems most fitting to the player, changing the game from a series of stages that follow a linear progression to a more open-ended metroidvania.
Confetti, Part of This Complete Breakfast
One of the more charming elements of The Messenger is how humorous the dialogue can be. The game is self-aware of the classic games which inspired it, making subtle nods to abilities that may have been lifted from the classics. The banter between the messenger and the shopkeeper can be particularly funny, especially when the shopkeeper punishes the messenger with a rambling story. There’s humor to be found throughout most of the game, particularly in some of the boss fights, though most of the more memorable moments involve a shopkeeper in some capacity.
It’s a safe bet that most players will die quite a bit in their first playthrough.
The phrase “tough but fair” is an accurate way to describe the challenges that the player will face in The Messenger. Between trying to learn the boss patterns or mastering the traversal abilities to get through perilous areas, it’s a safe bet that most players will die quite a bit in their first playthrough. But as brutally difficult as some areas may seem at first, nothing took more than a few attempts to overcome. Initially, this was a challenging game, but having just a little patience is all that’s required to overcome The Messenger’s challenges. For achievement/trophy hunters, things can be a bit more punishing as a couple of trophies require making significant progress in the game without dying or completing a cave with no visibility, but as difficult as these tasks might sound, they aren’t impossible.
The Messenger Is Still Relevant
When The Messenger was released in 2018, it was met with favorable critical reviews, and playing it six years later, those accolades still feel well deserved. The Messenger didn’t really strike out to be incredibly innovative. Instead, it took many elements of what one would assume are the favorite old games and made something unique with them. What makes The Messenger great is how well these ideas came together, creating something that simultaneously feels classic and contemporary. The chiptune soundtrack, pixel graphics and general gameplay mechanics perfectly recreate the essence of the best 2D games from the ’80s and early ’90s, but still feel modern with the expected quality-of-life features. The self-referential humor and witty dialogue also go a long way in making The Messenger a joy to play.
Despite being an entirely different style of game, The Messenger is actually in the same universe as Sea of Stars. The events in Sea of Stars are set thousands of years before The Messenger and fully enjoying one game isn’t dependent on playing the other, but there are fun connections for players who enjoy Easter egg hunting. Mesa Island in particular has many areas that are strikingly similar to areas in The Messenger, and if one listens closely, the music in these areas in Sea of Stars sound like remixes of tunes from The Messenger. Getting into all the specifics takes some of the fun out of it. As different as the two games are, both are great for what they try to be, and it’s recommended to play both games close to each other to catch all The Messenger references in Sea of Stars.
The Messenger is available on PC, PlayStation 4, Switch and Xbox One. It’s one of the better retro-style 2D games to have come out in recent years, and is a testament that there are great gems to be found among indie games. The Messenger is a must play for fans of metroidvanias and action platformers.
The Messenger
