Zapling Bygone is an entertaining albeit short Metroidvania that I really enjoyed. The game features simple, yet elegant graphics and an atmospheric soundtrack that add to the overall experience.
In Zapling Bygone, you take control of a small, tentacly creature known as a "zapling." Your task is to find and eradicate the infection that is plaguing the world. In a Metroidvania fashion, the world is interconnected with 6 biomes, each with their own enemies, bosses and backstory. The more you explore and progress through the game, you unlock comic strip panels representing major events that have happened in this world.
Getting around the world is quite fun as the creature moves swiftly through the environments and as you kill bosses and wear their skulls (sounds metal AF, I know) you unlock new traversal mechanics that open up new paths for yout to explore. Think the usual stuff like double jump, a dash, grappling hook as well as the ability to stick to walls.
Spread out through the world you will also find game-changing mutations you can slot into notches, similar to Hollow Knight, that modify and enhance your abilities. There are also skull fragments to find and collect that shine light on long dead civilizations. You can also trade plasma for ancient keys, forgotten secrets and weird paintings.
Metroidvania games can be quite often challenging, borderline punishing, but it's not the case here. I found Zapling Bygone to be fairly easy since you can kinda cheese the hell out of all the bosses. For example, if you jump on top of the Ratking head and continuosly strike down, he will just freeze in place doing nothing. As I said, nearly all of the bosses have similar cheese tactics so keep that in mind.
Even though I found it be fairly easy, I really enjoyed Zapling Bygone. It is a fun 3 hour experience and I recommend it to any Metroidvania fans out there. Thanks for reading!
The game was reviewed on a PS5 using a code provided by the publisher. Zapling Bygone is available on PC, Playstation, Switch and Xbox.
