The Messenger

The Messenger is such a well crafted labor of love from its' 8-bit/16-bit Ninja Gaiden inspired visuals, to its' outstanding soundtrack and amazingly entertaining dialogue between characters. This is from the team at Sabotage Studios, whose most recent work was Sea of Stars, which is a prequel to The Messenger. Both games are phenomenal and I highly suggest trying them both out, even though one is a side-scrolling Ninja Gaiden/Metroidvania-like, and the other is a Chrono Trigger inspired RPG with a combat system along the lines of Super Mario RPG. The game starts off like your basic old school Ninja Gaiden, but as the story opens up it evolves into a "dual timeline" style of gameplay that switches between NES and SNES levels of visuals and audio. With this separate timeline mechanic the "NES" style is in the past and the "SNES" style is in the future. There are parts of most levels that require you to complete them in the past or go into the future to complete tasks such as acquire a plant that takes centuries to grow. There is also a floating companion that comes along with you and if you die, it literally bombards you with insults and even requires you to pay a fee for dying. I can for a fact, say that I have never had more fun dying in a game to see all the witty insults your companion throws at you. The gameplay loop overall is simple enough as you progress and earn upgrades, but figuring out when to be in what timeline in a certain area adds some complexity as the game progresses. Some solid challenge definitely awaits as later levels ramp up the intensity and precision of platforming, which will keep you on your toes. All in all, The Messenger is a great game from top to bottom and it leaves no question in my mind why it won Best Indie at the TGA 2018. Pros -Great visuals, spanning the 8-bit and 16-bit era -Absolutely jamming soundtrack -Fun and addictive gameplay, especially when you get all your movement upgrades -Nice varied stage locals -Jukebox functionality -Some of the funniest and most fourth-wall breaking dialog ever -Never has being told to "get good" felt better -Pretty cool dragon riding Side Scrolling Shoot Em Up segment -You can feel the care and love that went into making this game Cons -Maybe a few more upgrades to unlock -Some of the Prophecy clues could be a little misleading in my opinion if you were trying to figure them out without having to purchase a hints from the merchant -Would like to have a boss rush mode -Backtracking at times was a just a wee bit tedious (the option of choosing which teleport gate you come through could have fixed this) -Holds true to that old school side scroller "if the screen scrolls too far and then you go back, the enemies respawn."