A cute metroidvania about small but powerful creature in big world, if you like Ori or Hollow Knight, and have an interest in Japanese folklore, then this one is for you.
You play as Bō, a newly born Tentaihana, taking the form of a teal lotus fox spirit, and as you explore, you’ll eventually meet Asahi, who teaches you how to use Bō’s earring as a staff, granting you a basic attack. In reality though, this staff is going to be used just as much if not more for platforming. Pogo jumping off of paper lantern spirits is a skill you’re going to learn to exploit heavily.
As for gameplay, this is very much a metroidvania through and through. Explore through a bunch of different locations and platforming challenges in order to unlock more movement abilities, and access more areas. Like Ori, you eventually unlock a Bash ability, though you can’t use it to jump off of projectiles, only parry them, and like in Hollow Knight, you unlock a Focus ability, in the form of tea, that you can use to cast spells and heal with and that recharges by hitting enemies.
Unlike both of these games though, this game is absolutely oozing with Japanese folklore, mythology, and even some references to some 20th century stories and folklore too, so much so that this game seems to have utterly obliterated the culture analysis YouTuber, Gaijin Goombah, twice! It’s by no means necessary to know the myths and references beforehand, as the game does a very good job accurately retelling the story for those that don’t know them.
Lets talk about combat, because it seems like every game after Hollow Knight seems to have a focus on boss fights and combat. This game has a relatively in-depth combat system, with a huge emphasis on staying airborn, as striking an enemy, lantern, or decoration not only pogos you upwards, but also refreshes both your double jump and air dash, allowing you to stay in the air for longer, eventually you unlock an ability where building a combo of airborn attacks also improves the effectiveness of your next spell. The wild emphasis on staying airborn also enables some incredibly tough platforming segments.
It’s no emphasis to say that contrary to all of its peers, Bō’s platforming is harder than the boss fights. If it wasn’t for unlocking this game’s equivalent to the Hiveblood charm, I’d have spent more deaths in the platforming segments than I would have in the boss fights.
All in all, very good game, absolutely adore the entire aesthetic of hand drawn graphics and Japanese folklore inspiration, and the gameplay tickled my brain in a good way riiiiiight up until I found out that the hardest platforming segment in the game has a flower quest burried in it :fear:.
Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1614440 £16.99
Humble Bundle: https://www.humblebundle.com/store/bo-path-of-the-teal-lotus £16.25
Switch: https://www.nintendo.com/en-gb/Games/Nintendo-Switch-download-software/B-Path-of-the-Teal-Lotus-2614661.html £16.99
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