Maseylia: Echoes of the Past boldly approaches the 3D Metroidvania genre with a swagger that expresses a confidence I wasn’t quite ready for. It achieves this through its drip-fed narrative, no-hand-holding exploration and high-quality precision platforming that’s set in this strangely unique and surreal world where you can’t really predict anything that’s coming, and for that alone I have to applaud it.
Made by French developer Victor Abresol and his small team at Sol Brothers, Maseylia has been a passion project for the last three years. First starting out as a hobby, it quickly turned into a full-time job, gaining over 35,000 wish lists, a successful Kickstarter and a bunch of loyal supporters along the way. It’s easy to see why, with its fast-paced movement and gorgeous sable-like visuals.
Inspiration for the game came mostly from Metroid Prime and Hollow Knight, which are readily apparent throughout its runtime. You won’t be opening doors with colour-coded beams or upgrading your weapons to make them stronger, though, as all the upgrades are centred on traversal and giving your unnamed protagonist new movesets and abilities to manoeuvre around obstacles and reach previously inaccessible areas.
These upgrades come thick and fast at the start of the game, with three or four obtained within the first hour of my 12-hour playthrough. I was worried that if Maseylia kept this pace, there would be none left for the rest of the game, but thankfully they do start to thin out as you progress, leaving you time to get to grips with the new powers and what the game asks of you at that point. The new abilities also start with standard affairs you’d expect to see, like a grapple, slide, and dash, but things start to get really interesting the deeper you go, with some original ideas coming to the forefront and making for some fun and unique upgrades.
Exploration is, as expected, key to progression, and there’s an abundance to sink some time into here, with different locations interlocking perfectly and shortcuts and secret paths to find along the way. It ticked all the boxes and hit the criteria of what you would expect from a good Metroidvania adventure. Though, I did struggle at times with the nature of the exploration, as at some parts it was clear where to go, but there were many times it was unclear which direction I needed to aim for. I was lost, and the options open to me at the time seemed to be a no-go.
There is an in-game map that can be used to try and pinpoint where you need to go and where you’ve been. It’s pretty robust too, showing missed abilities, health upgrades and pages of a journal that you fill out as you explore. It’ll also show your completion time for each of the five areas as well as warp and save points alongside other useful information.
It also updates as you move, but only if you’ve paid a little robot to unlock the full map of a specific area. But I did have issues with the map, as it was unclear sometimes where I was and how to get to a specific area. Also, the map sometimes didn’t update, so there were times my character token was just in a black void, and one time an ability icon didn’t disappear from the map, making me think I had missed it when, in fact, I hadn’t. But once I had learnt to work around these quirks and understand how the map worked a little more, it did click, and it became much easier to figure things out and the directions I needed to go, alleviating that lost feeling I was suffering with.
Combat in the game was also hit and miss. There’s a wide variety of enemies throughout the game, but most all have the same attack of firing gloopy missiles at you in varied directions. Some do have different attacks, but it eventually became a means to an end. With only two weapons to choose from (a stick-like baton and what became my default, a bow with unlimited arrows), it was easy to just pick off the dangers from a distance.
Bosses might as well not have been there either; there just weren’t enough to their attacks or move patterns to make them a real threat. Though they looked menacing, they ended up easy to defeat by using the same tactic as with the normal enemy types. Combat in general ended up disappointing throughout and only served to gain cash from defeated enemies that you can use on map upgrades, unlock fast travel points, upgrade your gold pouch, or buy extra health points.
You can also use earned cash to purchase charms from certain characters (these can also be found in the wild). The charms give you extra benefits like healing while moving, earning you more cash from enemies – I’m sure you get the picture. To stop you using too many at once, each charm takes a set amount of storage. Fair enough, it’s a good system to implement, but you can’t upgrade the storage, so most of the charms you find will end up useless. There was a great chance to truly expand this system, but sadly it’s one that just fell to the wayside.
But my favourite aspect to the game was in its precision platforming. The team at Sol Brothers has created some truly fun and thoughtful platforming that at times would require the use of multiple abilities at once to complete. Combining a double jump with a dash to land on a stone pillar that will start to crumble as soon as you land, which also has spikes timed to your jump, and then having to do the same in quick succession to make it across a poisonous lake is just one example. I’d love to give you a better idea than this, but that would spoil some of the late-game abilities which are best left to your own discovery.
But each time I succeeded in these moments, it was met with a rush of adrenaline and a big, sweaty fist in the air. Because all the abilities are tied to movement, it meant that this part of the game could really thrive due to some truly ingenious moments. Though, I would have liked a few more save points, as there were times I died, and it resulted in me having to redo big chunks of the platforming.
Visuals are also one of the game’s strongest areas. As mentioned, it’s borrowed from Sable with its style and colour palette, which shows off the imagination that’s gone into the world design perfectly. The graphics really give each area such a wonderful individual identity, bringing each of the unique features out in such a powerful way. The sound design really aided the surreal atmosphere with moody, instrumental pieces that were hardly noticed but were missed when I experimented with having no music at all.
Maseylia: Echoes of the Past is one of the most memorable games I’ve played this year, for all the points I’ve made but also for the rough edges it contains. Sharp transitions from cut scenes are jarring, unexpectedly jolting you out of the experience. Clipping is a common occurrence, with your character standing in the ground or sometimes the camera seeing through walls when swivelled. The bow sometimes just stopped working in places, having to die to get it back to working condition, and sometimes the enemies didn’t move, just standing there letting you attack them.
But there’s something endearing about these quirks of the game. Any other title I would be lambasting it for such design flaws, but not here. For some reason it only elevated my play through; it felt like they should be here in this imperfect world, and they only aided in making me warm towards the game even more.
