The metroidvania genre has evolved so much in so many cool ways these last few years that playing a game in 2024 that doesn't even deliver on the basics, just isn't worth it
Nowdays it seems that every other game is a metroidvania. I love the genre and I get excited when I play games that apart from executing the usual metroidvania tropes really well, add their own unique spins and elevate the genre even higher. I am sad to say that The Mobius Machine not only doesn't add anything unique to the table, but it's also not even a good metroidvania. It's just serviceable at best.
After experiencing a weird dream up in space, your tiny astronaut crashlands into an alien world. Your spaceship is badly damaged so you venture out and explore an open interconnected world filled with brutal alien lifeforms and malfunctioning machines to repair the ship and escape.
Or, at least, that's what I think is the premise of this game. This planet is inhabited by aliens and robots that try to kill you and you'll come across buildings and structures clearly built by humans, but what happened to them, where are they and what where they doing here... there are no answers to these questions or, at least, I didn't find any.
A staple of metroidvanias is their large interconnected confusing by design worlds. You usually reach up to a point that you can't progress cause you either can't double jump, swim or destroy an obstacle, whatever that is, so you have to backtrack and find the correct upgrade which is usually behind a boss. The best metroidvanias make this thing feel effortless, you just know where to go and that's all thanks to the careful design and thought that the devs have put into crafting the world. Unfortunately, I didn't find that "invisible helping hand" when I was playing The Mobius Machine. I got lost, like lost lost, and I had no idea where to go. Yes, there's a map mechanic in the game, but you have to find a terminal to download the map for that specific zone. Nothing wrong with that, but the map is not helpful at all. It's hard to read and you don't know what ability you need to have in order to progress.
So there I am, exploring, when I find a large gap that I can't jump. I backtrack, find a ladder and I begin scaling this fairly large building. There is a lot of jumping involved so in my mind I'm like "OK, a lot of jumping and platforming so I must be getting close to unlocking a double jump or glide or something that will allow me to jump that gap". I make my way to the top, killing like what felt a million aliens to just get one blueprint out of three to upgrade my blaster?! This ain't it chief.
If you play like Hollow Knight, Blasphemous, The Last Faith or even the recent masterpiece Price of Persia: The Lost Crown, you understand that these developers have cracked the science behind how fast you should unlock upgrades and new abilities to not only feel more powerful in the game but also so that the game doesn't become stale. Again, I did not find that careful pacing in The Mobius Machine, you go on way to long with the same basic moveset and weapon that it just becomes well, boring. The same with boss battles. In other metroidvanias, you know when you are about to throw hands with a boss. Here, they just appear as you enter a seemingly random room or fall down a random hole.
Combat is serviceable and works like a twin-stick shooter, you move with the left analog and aim and shoot with the right one. You start with a blaster, but once you find blueprints you can unlock a shotgun or sniper rifle variation. The enemies range from dumb floating aliens that do nothing and ones that spit stuff at your or just explode kamikaze style to rushing robots that will try to punch melee you. It's fun for a while, but then it just becomes repetitive as you'll fight the same enemies using the same dumb guns.
The artstyle is probably the best thing out of this whole game. The 3D artsyle is very unique, like the world, aliens, robots and even your astronaut guy have this chibby Pixar-ish look that I like. On Instagram and TikTok you might have seen some viral videos featuring a tiny astronaut popping out of iPhones and whatnot and that's exaclty what The Mobius Machine artstyle reminds me of.
I did not enjoy playing The Mobius Machine. The metroidvania genre has evolved so much in so many cool ways these last few years that playing a game in 2024 that doesn't even deliver on the basics, just isn't worth it. I don't recommend this game. But if it ever comes to a subscription service like GamePass or PS Plus, you can try it and see for yourself. Thanks for reading!
The game was reviewed on a PS5 using a review copy provided by the developers. The Mobius Machine will be available on PlayStation, Xbox and PC.
