Mistigri | Review

Developer: Benjamin Soulé

Publisher: Benjamin Soulé

Reviewed on: PC

Available on: PC

Released: 29^th May 2016

Mistigri is a game developed using a game making toolkit called PICO-8, the toolkit offers budding game creators a few preset assets and tools they can use to affordably and easily make a short game that can be played for free in web browsers. The games all have a retro inspired pixel art aesthetic and controls can consist of only six buttons which harkens back to the days of arcade machines and the NES.

This particular game is heavily inspired by Bubble Bobble (which just so happens to be one of my favourite NES era platformers) so I was immediately drawn to it. The level structure, visual style, weapon upgrades, music and some of the gameplay elements are very similar to Bubble Bobble, but does Mistigri do enough to set it apart from the very game that inspired it?
In Mistigri you play as two skeletons called Mist and Grim (Grim is only visible if you're playing 2-player) and they are given the task of working their way through 22 levels, progressing deeper underground to destroy the evil Overlord. As far as the story goes this is really all we're given. None of the story is directly given to us in the game and I've checked through the game's description and can't find any more story elements either. It could have given us a bit more of a context as to what we're doing and why this Overlord is such a threat.

Bubble Bobble doesn't have very much in the way of story either, but it does explicitly tell us that we are going through the game to defeat the evil wizard in order to rescue Bub and Bob's girlfriends and change themselves back into their human forms.

A little wall of text with some graphics at the start of the game which tells us why we're going after the Overlord and who Mist and Grim are would be great and while it wouldn't affect the actual gameplay, it would give players something more to aim for and motivate them to finish it.

It's not like a bit of story couldn't have been done using PICO-8 either because Mistigri has a scrolling list of all the enemies, items and power-ups in the game if you leave it on the title screen long enough (which is a cool feature).

Mistigri is a single screen platformer, the objective is to defeat all the enemies on a single screen and only after doing so will you progress to the next level. The way in which you defeat your enemies is the main thing that separates it from Bubble Bobble, rather than trapping enemies in bubbles and then being able to use them as makeshift platforms, in Mistigri you knock your enemies out by throwing multi coloured balls at them and you then gain the ability to pick them up and throw them at other enemies which immediately kills them (which is more similar to Parasol Stars: The Story of Bubble Bobble 3). You can kill multiple enemies in one throw if you time it right and you'll be rewarded with more score for doing this.

The levels are designed very well and there are lots of different things to consider when platforming your way around and fighting the enemies. Thin platforms can be jumped and attacked through, either to navigate your way up or to attack from below, thick platforms can't be traversed through so you'll need to find your way past these and dropping into pits will result in you falling from the top of the screen (again, very similar to Bubble Bobble). You can also throw balls down pits to attack your enemies from above which is a useful tactic. Each stage utilises these different elements very well and creates situations where there are multiple ways of defeating your opponents, you can be fairly tactical in how you approach different situations and in thinking about which enemies to go for first.

The early levels are set up so you can easily get big combos by throwing enemies. You quickly learn about your different attacks because of this.

The pacing of Mistigri is much faster than Bubble Bobble, because of the combo mechanic where you defeat multiple enemies in one throw, it seems that there is a big emphasis on speed. You must defeat all the enemies as quickly as possible or risk an invincible ghost appearing who will follow you around the level and kill you by touching you (just like in Bubble Bobble). I feel like the ghost appears slightly too quickly on some stages, this could be down to the fact that for most of the time I was playing single-player and obviously if you're doing two player you would (theoretically) be able to take down the enemies two times faster, thus preventing the ghost from appearing, but the ghost appears just as fast regardless of whether you're playing single-player or not which feels slightly unfair at times.

Mistigri features lots of different items and power ups that randomly appear in stages as you play. The most important of these items are the potions which change the way you throw balls, some will make you shoot faster, some will make you shoot further, etc. You can get extra lives by spelling out either 'EXTEND' or 'MYSTIC' using letters that appear throughout the stages, shooting these letters will change them with should allow you to quickly spell the word you're trying to spell. However the letters appear and disappear so quickly that I never really got the chance to properly take advantage of this function. I get that the game is fast paced, but I feel like certain parts need to be slowed down quite substantially. Other power ups can be activated too, like a ring of fire which appears after collecting candles and will last for the remainder of the stage you're on.

As the stages progress, you'll be introduced to new enemies with different attacks and movements.

The game features a score system which works like almost every other game with score does, you get points by killing enemies and if you combo kill them, you'll get a higher score reward for it. After reaching a set score you'll be rewarded with another life which gives incentive to collect everything you see and risk combo attacks whenever you can. One thing I feel the game missed out on though, was registering your high score, I couldn't find anywhere where the game kept track of this and it made the score system feel quite unrewarding.

Mistigri is quite a difficult game, I never actually finished it (so I can't comment on the last boss, assuming there is one) and this is mostly due to the different enemies and their attacks. The game starts off simple with fairly slow moving caterpillar enemies which can't shoot and can only move left and right. However later on you'll be facing fireball throwing penguins, birds that can fly around the stage however they please, sun enemies which lock on and move in your direction whenever they see you, boulders which move quick and continuously roll down the screen in their attempts to crush you and boomerang throwing ninjas that can throw their projectile in any direction and do so very quickly to catch you off guard. The ghost which appears after spending too long on a stage will go through walls and home in on you until it touches and kills you.

The mix of all these different enemies combined with the (sometimes) complicated level designs can make the game quite frustrating and this is due to the fact that once you lose all your lives you need to start the game again. There should be a continue function and upon reaching the end of the game it should tell you that for the true ending you have to do it without using a continue. This would keep the challenge but not be frustrating for people who just want to play it casually.

Sometimes, throwing balls into a pit so they rain down upon your enemy is the best course of action.

The graphics in Mistigri are 8-bit inspired and it was clearly made to look like an NES game (like most other PICO-8 games). It has lots of different colour schemes which change on a level to level basis to stop things looking drab but it also has different background details like textured floors and walls and sometimes background objects like rocks and barrels.

The enemy designs are great, it's easy to tell which enemies are which and this is handy because you'll need to able to predict their attack patterns if you want to survive. The enemies all have different movement animations and none of these look out of place. If this game was released on the NES you wouldn't have known it was an low budget indie game with how everything looks and plays.

When Mist or Grim die they explode into a pool of blood. This probably seems a bit violent for what the rest of the game is like, but I feel like it could have ran with this idea and made the game a bit more gorey in general, to give it more of it's own identity and separate itself from Bubble Bobble.

Item sprites are detailed and good for the same reason as the enemies. In a fast paced platformer like this you need to be able to scan the screen and quickly identify which items are which so you can decide which to prioritise and this game does a great job with that.

There are also lots of little details with screen movement, like how when you throw an enemy the screen will very briefly shake which makes it feel like your throw has a lot of force. Also, when you die the screen will flash red for a split second making the enemies hit seem more powerful and deadly.

One issue I have with the graphics is that they are slightly uninspired because they look like practically every other 8-bit inspired platformer out there, but I think they're good nonetheless. My major critisism of the graphics in general though is that I don't particularly understand why the main characters are skeletons or what the enemies actually are and how they have any relation to each other. If the game had a story this would probably be explained, but because it doesn't explain anything the game does seem a little bit randomly thrown together (even though the enemy designs themselves are great).

If you've ever wanted to throw colourful balls at some suns, this is the game for you.

The main issue with Mistigri's controls is that it doesn't support controllers. With it being a fast paced platformer this is quite a big issue but I think this is more of an issue with PICO-8 rather than Mistigri itself. Also. this is stopped from being a detrimental issue because there are workarounds for it. I used a programme called Joy2Key in order to bind controller inputs to keyboard keys which then allowed me to use a controller of choice with Mistigri. It's a bit of a nuisance, but it's pretty much essential if you want to play Mistrigri properly (playing any platformer on a keyboard is counter intuitive in my opinion).

Once we get past that issue though, the controls are actually very good. The jumping is responsive and feels natural and I never felt like any death was down to an issue with the game, it was all based on something I mis-timed or didn't see. The attack button is used to both throw balls and throw enemies once they are picked up. To pick them up you simply walk into them, which is easy and instant which keeps the pace of the game fast and snappy. The general movement feels great too, obviously it isn't fully 360 degree movement (because you only have an up, down, left and right movement buttons like on an NES controller) but for the type of game it is (a retro throw back), it works very well.

I did test out the two player a little bit and it worked great using two controllers and keybinding software.

The music in Mistigri is good, it has a Bubble Bobble-esque feel to it which obviously fits the game well considering how similar to Bubble Bobble the whole game is. However, a problem I have with both Mistigri and Bubble Bobble is that it should have more tracks. The whole game has one music track and while this makes it stick in your head long after you stop playing, it becomes very dull and repetitive after a while and can make the game's level themes stand out less than they should. If the music changed with the different themes of the levels, I feel that each of the different themes would have stood out more and kept me more interested in coming back for more.

The sound design is minimal, each enemy attack makes a different noise which not only gives the enemies more distinction between each other but also warns any player that there's a projectile coming even if you haven't seen it. Jumping, attacking, picking up items and throwing enemies all make noises which gives each action you perform some weight. All the sound effects sound suitably NES-like which merges perfectly with the graphics and gameplay.

The boomerang enemies are the hardest I came up against. Especially when there's more than one of them, they throw their boomerangs so quickly and it's hard to avoid while keeping your eye on the other enemies too.

Mistigri is a great little platformer that sets out to be a love letter to the NES era of platformers (inparticular Bubble Bobble). Personally, I don't feel like it quite does enough to make itself distinct from Bubble Bobble or any other retro inspired platformer. It takes many elements from the game it's inspired by (and other elements from the many Bubble Bobble sequels) but doesn't do very much that's new (besides the change of main character and enemy designs).

It's a good challenge and keeps you coming back to see how far you can get and what the highest score you can achieve is. Perhaps Mistigri's greatest strength is how it has a 2-player co-op mode which makes the experience far more fun than playing single-player. However this is also it's greatest weakness because it doesn't seem to have been balanced very well for playing single-player and can be frustratingly difficult.

The controls are nice and responsive but it's a shame it doesn't have controller support built in rather than having to use external software. The gameplay is solid, the graphics are good (but slightly uninspired), the level designs keep things varied and interesting and the game as a whole has high production value, I recommend playing this if you're a fan of Bubble Bobble or if you need to kill a bit of time and want something better than a typical Flash game. The fact it's completely free and can be played in your browser (no download necessary) means that there's no harm at all in giving it a go. If this was a game available on Steam that cost money I would be slightly disappointed, but because it's a free browser game, clearly made by someone who loves Bubble Bobble, I feel like I enjoyed the experience I had with it, plus you have to remember that this was created with PICO-8 which probably has some heavy restrictions with what you can or can't do when creating a game.

Pros

- It's free and plays in your browser, you don't even need to download anything!

- Lots of different enemy types which change the way you navigate stages and keeps you on your toes.

- Levels are designed so each area can be quickly completed but they also have quite a lot of depth, offering lots of different ways to defeat your enemies.

- Many items and power ups which offer a reason to replay the game (to find new items) and give the game a bit of complexity while still being very easy to understand.

- The controls are very good and responsive (when using external software to use a controller).

- A very enjoyable little game that is quick and simple enough to be played for short bursts every now and then when you're bored. Would work great on 3DS or PS Vita (if some fine tuning was done).

Cons

- Seems to have been built with the 2-player mode in mind, but this results in the game being too difficult on single-player.

- It needs some kind of story to give us a reason to keep playing and give us a bit of information on who we are and what we're doing.

- There should have been more music to make the game's different colour pallets and themes stand out from each other.

- No built in controller support.

- It should have had a continue function.
- Doesn't do much to separate itself from Bubble Bobble or other NES inspired indie games.