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It's a simple but creative and aesthetically impressive mechanic that works very well. A whole new dimension of puzzling opens up, creating even more tantalizing opportunities for exploration-you'll have to go back and forth often to maneuver around a level's physical obstacles and differences in each time zone. The game switches from its vibrant 8-bit aesthetic to an even more beautiful 16-bit art style, with richer backgrounds, a more diverse color palette, and more advanced audio processing to contrast with its previously chiptune soundtrack.Īdditionally, the map and mechanics open up in the style of a Metroidvania, and a mechanic is introduced which allows you to travel back and forth between eras.

The Messenger also features a big twist: While the first half of the game is a linear action-platformer, once the midway point is reached, the game's narrative expands, unlocking time travel to and from the future. The Messenger never feels too overwhelming or too easy, and its pacing and difficulty curve is nicely balanced-there is always a satisfaction to be had when a secret is found, a difficult obstacle is conquered, or a boss is defeated. Death is common, but the momentum never stops due to the use of generous checkpoints, allowing you to quickly learn from past mistakes and improve your muscle memory. Harder obstacles and challenges are introduced, and the game forces you to make the most of your abilities in order to keep up. The Messenger starts off fairly easy, but the difficulty quickly increases as you acquire more abilities. You can take the straightforward route, or you can attempt the more difficult cloudstepping route that ultimately yields greater rewards due to numerous well-hidden secrets sprinkled throughout the game. Almost every level is crafted in such a way that it can be traversed using a number of different approaches, and exploration and experimentation are encouraged at every corner. The rewarding high-risk mechanic is complemented by The Messenger's smart design.

There is a great satisfaction to be found in the demands of successful cloudstepping, and the controls are impressively responsive to accompany your needs here. This means you simply can't double-jump just anywhere, and an element of skill and timing is added to regular proceedings-chain several hits in succession and you can almost fly across the map by cloudstepping, but whiff one slash and you will find yourself staring into a bottomless pit. Most interestingly, The Messenger replaces the classic double-jump move with something called cloudstepping, an ability that only makes double-jumping available after you've successfully landed a sword blow on an enemy or object mid-air. The ninja's skillset is initially limited, but it expands quickly to include abilities like a rope dart, wall climbing, and aerial gliding as well as a couple of optional techniques like a boomerang shuriken.

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