Knocked another game off the list. Let's discuss. BACKGROUND:
As you probably guessed, this was a random Steam sale purchase. I strangely didn't put in a lot of time into it before I inexplicably dropped it entirely. Oh well, now I can beat it. PLOT: The game adapts Norse mythology. You play as Munin, one of Odin's ravens tasked to fly around the world and report to the Allfather. The catch here is that Munin has been transformed into a mortal woman, no thanks to Loki's bullshit. In order to restore her true form, Munin must travel across the Nine Realms to collect her feathers. The story is mostly presented through short poems at the beginning of each stage. Interestingly, the poems are composed pretty similarly to the Poetic Edda, which is the biggest/most significant source of Norse mythology that we know of. I thought that was a neat approach, but it does use somewhat archaic language, so if you're not into that, you should just probably skip the text. Personally, I didn't really care for the story; I think the setting and premise is neat, but the game doesn't do much outside of that. PRESENTATION: The visuals have a painterly look to them, and it's most evident in the level backgrounds. Most things look decent, but stuff like water looks kinda odd. Some levels are pretty striking in terms of design, but a few feel a bit drab to look at. The music is just fine, leaning more on the tranquil and ambient side, which fits the overall slower pace of the game. None of the tracks stood out to me as particularly memorable, but I thought they were all decent. GAMEPLAY: Munin is a puzzle platformer, which means a lot of walking, jumping, and solving puzzles to progress. General movement feels kinda clunky (in particular, controlling your movement in mid-air doesn't feel great), but it wasn't to the point that made me angry. If you're used to platformers with more responsive controls, you might find this game a little vexing to play. The object of every level is to collect all the feathers strewn about the area. In order to get them all, you'll need to use the game's main mechanic: the ability to rotate sections of the level. Doing so is easy; simply move the cursor to a particular section and hit the button. It's a little tricky to get a hang of since you're constantly shifting things around, but the game eases you into it adequately. My only gripe with this mechanic is that the direction of rotation is fixed, but that's just a minor thing that didn't really affect me in the grand scheme. Once you get a hang of how the rotation mechanic works, solving puzzles gets super satisfying. You'll be doing a lot of moving between sections and rotating afterward, and it feels amazing when you've learned the level well enough that you know exactly what to rotate to get to where you need to go. It gets trickier later on, as more advanced levels feature multiple sections that rotate at the same time. For the most part, this game doesn't require too much in the way of twitch reflexes, but there are a few situations where it comes in handy. As stated before, you travel through the Nine Realms, which means you go through nine whole stages, each with a good handful of levels (adding up to around 70 in total). Once you get past Midgard (which is essentially the tutorial world), each succeeding realm introduces a brand new mechanic that (sort of) fits the theme of that realm. For example, Jotunheim introduces boulders, which you can push around, use as a platform, and (with enough speed) use to break barriers. Every mechanic has something interesting to offer, and the way they interact with your ability to rotate sections of the level leads to cool interactions (as well as some tough levels). In terms of difficulty, Munin is no pushover, with a good number of levels that have a lot of shit going on. Though there were certainly moments when I got stuck or was annoyed, none of the levels stood out to me as exceptionally difficult. Most of them can be beaten simply by just taking the time to inspect exactly what happens when you try to rotate every section of the level. Once you clear one of the Nine Realms, you can play through them again via the Chapters menu. The only catch is that you have to play through all the levels of the entire realm in order, and there's no way to simply select individual levels. I found this incredibly odd; I figured the Chapters menu was some sort of level select, but it isn't (not entirely, anyway). VERDICT: Munin is a solid puzzle platformer that takes plenty of inspiration from Norse myth, and features a novel mechanic that has you directly manipulate each of the game's levels to get through them. Add in plenty of other level-specific mechanics that work in conjunction with the rotation to create some interesting interactions, and you have a game with a lot to offer puzzle-wise. I have my qualms with the game, and it's a little on a short side, but overall, I thought it was a pretty good puzzle platformer that gets real creative with the level design. Although one can argue that there are probably better puzzle platformers out there, Munin is still worth getting if you're a fan of the genre and have a couple bucks to spare. It's pretty cheap even without a sale, so if you want a budget title to pass the time, this isn't a bad game to get. Go get it on Steam: Munin on Steam (steampowered.com) It's also on Android. I tried to look for it in the iOS App Store, but it appears to be delisted (that, or it's region-locked). Here's a link for that: Munin - Apps on Google Play - end -
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June 2024
Derryck
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