A video review can be watched here: https://youtu.be/JBbVPw1yyX4
For those who do not wish to watch the video:
Playtime: 19 hours
Completion Rate: About 90% (with 2 out of reportedly 6 endings achieved)
Pros:
- The Perfect Pencil tackles some very serious subject matter, with the nature of fear, shame and the lengths to which people are willing to go in order to avoid discomfort being dominant themes that permeate nearly every aspect of the plot in interesting ways. Its incredibly imaginative world is densely populated by a large cast of strange and eccentric characters, all of whom have a very specific role to fulfil, with each and every one of them being largely symbolic not only of certain human emotions but also the reasoning behind said emotions, which in turn leads to some surprisingly insightful conversations that may appear simplistic at first, but get progressively profound the more you think about them.
- The game boasts some of the most meaningfully creative biomes I have had the pleasure of traversing, all of which hold intense symbolism related to aspects of the human condition, effectively giving way to multilayered interpretations of their design.
- The map overview is incredibly detailed in terms of logistical structure as well as background art, making it very easy to locate major points of interest. Map rooms are not immediately visible the moment you enter them, but require of you to break a number of orbs hidden in each room in order for their outline to appear on the overview, at which point they also mark the locations of save points, some important NPCs, merchants as well as fast travel locations.
- Platforming-wise, The Perfect Pencil doesn’t really do anything to stand out, though the few somewhat challenging acrobatic sections it featured were still enjoyable. You’re not going to find anything that will test your mettle here, but I would be lying if I said that you won’t need at least a bit of skill to get through some of its trickier parts.
- The same can be said about the game’s combat, which is completely straightforward and simplistic, though does work well for what it aims to be. In essence, John is only capable of taking down enemies in melee by using his pencil sword, which actually carries some satisfying weight, making each hit feel hefty and powerful. Your battle prowess is further enhanced by the aforementioned perspectives, which are trinkets that you can equip either through save points or by finding a special merchant, and function as balanced offerings by simultaneously providing a positive and negative effect, thus bringing some serious tactical thinking to the table. Each perspective evolves as you’re using it, for a maximum of two evolutions, resulting in more powerful versions that yield even greater advantages but also more detrimental disadvantages, effectively becoming the epitome of high-risk, high-reward trinkets. Switching between perspective mutations does cost Babls, so think carefully about your loadout to avoid unnecessary costs. You start off with only one perspective slot available, but can unlock more by purchasing them from a merchant for a maximum of four total slots. Healing is carried out during combat and is the result of a powered strike that you activate at the cost of courage, which returns one point of health to you if your attack lands successfully and can be repeated as long your courage meter has enough juice, which you replenish by hitting enemies and special flowers.
- Moving on to bosses, the big bads here were actually quite fun to fight, though most of them felt weaker that I would have liked. In essence, while their attack patterns were really fun to anticipate and avoid, I think a lot of the villains here could have used a larger health bar, since the vast majority was defeated relatively quickly to the point where they came across more like mini-bosses. That’s not to say that they were not a threat, but adding a couple more minutes to their fights would have benefited their overall danger levels. Still, they did give me a good time for as long as our bouts lasted, so they get a thumbs up!
Cons:
- As much as I enjoyed the game's engaging story, ironically, it is that very narrative depth that ends up being a double-edged sword, at times working in favor of the game while others against it.
You see, when I said that the game’s setting is home to many NPCs, I wasn’t exaggerating. The Perfect Pencil probably has the biggest number of interactable characters I have seen in a metroidvania, and almost all of them have a good number of dialogue lines to offer. Now, while I normally don’t have an issue with dialogue-heavy instances in metroidvanias, the problem here is that this aspect of the game can frequently result in disruptions related to pacing. In general, many of the characters in the game relate to a certain theme depending on the biome you are traversing, meaning that most of them would speak to me about the same thing but from a slightly different perspective, making some instances of dialogue engaging while others redundant and, consequently, rendering the disruption of my gameplay flow a bit frustrating.
It also didn’t help that, at times, the game can be vague about what it is that you need to do to progress by explaining your next goal in a whimsical way that, while thematically appropriate, is also cryptic, effectively resulting in instances of just wandering across the map in search of meaningful progress, something that was mostly prominent around the middle of the adventure.
One last thing that affected the game’s pacing was the inclusion of several mini-games and riddles that you could partake in. Now, while I do enjoy the occasional distraction from the main goal when it comes to metroidvanias, and am always up for a good brainteaser, some of the mini-games here, while in line with the game’s themes, kind of overstayed their welcome, and some of the riddles, most of which were aimed toward you figuring out codes for door locks, were quite tricky to solve, at least for me, resulting in the impression that, at times, I was playing a point and click adventure game disguised as a metroidvania.
- When it comes to the map, the game doesn’t offer any way to mark collectibles on the it, neither automatically nor manually, which can be a cause of frustration since it forces you to solely rely on your memory if you want to go for 100% completion.
- The fast travel system is very, very inconvenient. Aside from the fact that you unlock it considerably late in the game, said system takes the form of specific shortcuts which connect biomes together, with all of them being accessible via a central hub room. The main problem with this system is that, in order to access it, you need to walk to one of the shortcuts, thus leading to inconvenient traversal if you want to get from one biome to another quicker that you would on foot. You do eventually gain access to an item that can teleport you to the hub, but that item is optional and some people might miss it, so there’s that.
- Speaking about inconvenient traversal, the early hours of the game were plagued by some runbacks, which were the result of sparse save points in combination with lack of early, or efficient, fast-traveling, leading to me having to do long walks back to the point that I perished, though, to be fair, said runbacks were always eventually eliminated by the opening of great shortcuts, so the scales balanced out.
TL:DR:
All in all, The Perfect Pencil is a worthwhile game that boasts a very emotional and meaningful narrative, even if gameplay sometimes takes a backseat in favor of it. If you enjoy story-driven metroidvanias you should definitely give it a chance, but, if not, then this probably won't change your mind.
Final Grade: 7.2/10
