In recent years the bar for Metroidvania games has been raised to immeasurable heights – from the cliché comparisons to Hollow Knight: Silksong (which I am unashamedly guilty of) all the way to the artistic merits of MIO: Memories In Orbit and Constance. To claim that the genre is anything but varied would be foolish, but that doesn’t mean there’s not room for even more change – something The Perfect Pencil takes in its stride.
Awakening on a pier with no head and no hope, you set out on a journey that can best be described as introspective, putting you against analogous enemies to conquer your own fears and self-doubt to defeat the ‘White Beast’ who rules over the land. At its core the game embodies the spirit of surrealism, with the world resembling an extension of the subconscious, but it’s the gameplay that helps The Perfect Pencil shine.
If you’ve played any modern Metroidvania, you’ll already be familiar with the core loop of the game – defeat enemies, rest at checkpoints, gain new abilities, and drop all of your currency when you die. As far as core gameplay goes, you’ll find that the game doesn’t stray too far from the path in its foundations, but it’s the details that make the difference; the first and possibly largest change comes in the form of healing, which asks you to expend a point of ‘courage’ (a resource accumulated every time you hit an enemy) to charge an attack, then heal one point of damage (or ‘willpower’) if the attack lands. Even if blocked by an enemy, the attack just needs to land for the healing to take effect, but it’s a bold approach that reinforces more aggressive tactics.
Outside of general gameplay, the play style customisation also follows a more unique approach – in lieu of equipment, you are presented with ‘perspectives’, objects that can drastically alter your gameplay by providing unique buffs – unlike standard equippable items, perspectives also come with a downside that hinders your progress; a personal favourite for the early game increases your health pool by one point at the expense of one point of courage, meaning an increase to survivability but fewer opportunities for healing or abilities to be utilised.
It’s also worth mentioning how perspectives change through use, evolving into forms that may not necessarily be better but are certainly new – while it’s possible to reverse this change for a price, it can be beneficial to play around with and learn the ins and outs of each different perspective: if nothing else, it’s worth it for the wildly varied evolutions that it offers. This sudden change partway through an area may be frustrating to some, but as with the healing, it also aligns well with the themes of self-reflection that the game places front and centre.
These changes may not be for everyone; it can be jarring to come from another Metroidvania that requires more conservative tactics straight into The Perfect Pencil, which expects you to fight aggressively at every turn – the stark changes in gameplay are made even more obvious thanks to the familiarity of the combat and traversal itself. Thankfully this gameplay disparity is overshadowed massively by the world and the themes within, all of which aim to hold a mirror up to the player’s actions just as much as they do to the protagonist.
It’s important to recognise that this game won’t be for everyone, as it can cover some deeply uncomfortable topics despite the more whimsical design – enemies are designed in a traditionally surrealist manner, representing facets of the human psyche and the subconscious world you are exploring – personalities are on full display with every new NPC and enemy a reflection of their innermost being – those content to wallow in their own being remain at the hotel surrounded by soft pillows; the more ambitious seek to prove themselves better than others, inevitably taking part in a race to the (proverbial and literal) bottom; the working class of a great city throw tar-like ooze at others in the hopes of lowering their status, offering themselves a sense of fleeting superiority.
In the middle of this lies John, the headless protagonist that acts according to your whims, something the game wants to make very clear from the outset. Despite a lack of meaningful choices, you are reminded often that your actions, no matter whether they are the culmination of a mission or a means to progress, are yours and yours alone – at times the game will force you to do things you feel deeply unhappy about, but in this the game is also sending a message: you can stop whenever you want. You don’t need to persevere. In fact, the game actively punishes you for these actions at times, creating a form of meta-blockade to your advancement that requires you to clear certain objectives first.
From a purely storytelling perspective, the game is incredible – it may not be something others can gel with, particularly with its representation of mental health and the more blunt aspects of this that could be triggering to some, but if you are looking for a narrative experience, there is so much to delve into here; the game is full of secrets that remain well hidden without being needlessly difficult to find, usually shown by the telltale misshapen architecture or unidentified light sources, but each area can offer more insight into the world around you – sadly, it can also offer a tricky path towards a consumable that might otherwise be useless.
In spite of everything the game does well, there are a number of glaring issues in how some changes to the structure are baked into the game, the biggest of which being consumables. There isn’t exactly a precedent for what makes a consumable useful or not, but in my time with The Perfect Pencil, I was often frustrated by them whenever they appeared in my inventory. Unlike fragments, which are useful for upgrading your willpower and courage as well as offering snippets of lore, the consumables are items that may offer minor boons or buffs depending on when you use them – though not inherently bad, items such as Garlic Soup that prevent you from losing your currency on death aren’t as useful as they may appear, particularly where boss battles are concerned – though handy for exploring tough areas, boss encounters don’t tend to cause you to lose your currency, meaning my pockets are full of soup that serves me no purpose; as an aside, the idea of pockets brimming with soup and piñatas is deeply amusing.
Outside of consumables, the actual death mechanic is deeply irritating in some areas – instead of dropping a bundle of money where you stand, you are instead visited by a thief who grabs your Babls (the coequal currency of the world) and hides in a nearby dark spot – these hiding points can be scanned to reveal the thief, who apologises and gives your hoard back without so much as a scrap. In theory this isn’t terrible, but in practice it can mean dying in one place and hunting around a much larger area for the hiding place in question, often putting yourself in more peril for the sake of recovering everything. I could argue that it falls back into the design itself and a message on the futility of clutching onto everything you own, but in reality it’s something of a pain in the neck.
Issues aside, there are many elements of The Perfect Pencil that work well – from a well-designed world to the essential traversal abilities you receive throughout the story, the game remains a tightly designed experience that isn’t afraid to wear its emotional story on its sleeve.
