Marko: Beyond Braveis not at all what I expected.
“We love games as a storytelling medium,” Studio Mechka head Boyan Vasilev told me.
The main theme, however, is that of the underdog and his journey to becoming a hero.
The world, on the other hand, tells a more tragic story.
I didn’t do a lot of backtracking and ability-unlocking in the first hour.
Most of my time was spent fighting bosses and slowly cutting through horde-filled hallways.
Instead, I had to irritatingly die at the same point multiple times.
Getting past enemies felt a lot harder too.
I couldn’t easily maneuver past them or embrace my tried-and-true strategy of taking the high ground.
That isn’t to say Marko is helpless.
He’s slow but hits pretty hard.
And interestingly, he starts the game with a backward dodge.
The backstep dodge, on the other hand, is something that is mostly combat-oriented.
In my time with the demo, I did unlock an aerial dash that made platforming so much easier.
Vasilev confirmed my suspicion that Beyond Brave becomes less linear over time.
The game will have unorthodox boss fights too.
And, surprisingly, the backstep mechanic never felt necessary to overcome them.
Meanwhile, the endurance trial against the nymph was something I’d never faced in a metroidvania game before.
There are other interesting encounters in the game that use similar non-traditional gameplay and combat approaches.
For instance, we have a boss that is entirely themed around sounds and sound waves.
The few times I managed to pull it off, the game felt really good.
I’m more than willing to give the game a chance to change my mind, though.
Marko: Beyond Brave is set to launch for PC on September 17.
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