METAMORPHOSIS Review: Venturing Through A Strange Mystery

PS4 Review Code Provided by Ovid Works

One of the imaginations that aren’t explored often in other media is the wondrous mind of Franz Kafka. Taking on the fantastical world in a surreal, Kafka-inspired game is Ovid Works with their newly released title Metamorphosis. After playing through this platform-puzzle title, I have to say that it was a very interesting way to be introduced to the fiction that Kafka had produced.

Story

Take on the role of Gregor Samsa, a salesman who awakes after a celebratory evening with his friend Josef only to find himself to have been turned into a beetle! As you begin your strange journey to find a way to return to your human body, you learn that your friend has found himself in some serious trouble. While the allegations are never clearly provided, you must hurry back to help him. Now, only to figure out what kind of fantastical situation you find yourself in and what you need to do to escape it.

Gameplay

A lot of this game will involve platforming and since you are a tiny bug, you just might be able to figure out multiple ways to reach your destination. However, it isn’t always about heights and lengths, but rather figuring out a clever way to complete one task, if not multiple.

To do this you will have to use the only options you have; run, jump, and stationary movement with your legs. The last one is a unique mechanic that comes in handy more often than you might think as it is used to turn a gear which will power some kind of electrical current, if not another helpful aspect to get you to complete your task. Unlucky for you, the type of bug you turn into isn’t one that can naturally walk on walls so if you want to do this you will have to walk through some loose honey, or butter, or ink, or whatever gooey substance you see laying around for you to walk through. With your legs covered, you can use the limited amount to aid you in walking up walls to reach places you couldn’t otherwise.

I’ll admit that being the size of a bug makes the view itself rather difficult to manage, but it is something you get used to as you make progress. One thing that helped a lot is that you can hold down an overview key that lets you see the level from a skyward point-of-view. While you are looking at the level at this angle, it will show you where you are and where your goal location is at. It may not always show the goal location though as sometimes you will need to figure some things out yourself, but more often than not you can use this to guide your path.

A fair warning would be the jumping mechanic. it is deceiving with how high up it will allow you to go. Don’t be afraid to go for leaps where you think it might be possible if you try hard enough because there is a good chance you can make that jump. When testing out the jump, it always seemed like I didn’t get much air yet I could make most of the jumps that I attempted which was always a pleasant surprise.

I do like the death mechanic as well with this game as there is almost no pause between the death itself and respawning to the last autosave checkpoint. It saved pretty often so you never lost any progress and so failed attempts were hardly something to consider a hindrance nor frustration. With a new styled game like this, it is a welcomed aspect as I found myself testing limits quite often.

Visuals

I like that there was more emphasis put into the environment itself than the human characters. It really pronounced the importance of fellow bugs and to focus on your surroundings more often. The humans had a rather rough design that was almost cartoonistic, but at the same time, it matched well with the qualities of the environment. It did well to bring me into the surreal world without spoiling the experience.

Sounds

All the music throughout the game was pretty light and almost as if it wasn’t there, but pronounced and improved to an oldies-style song that pushed the mystery of the world and story further during pivotal moments. I also found the way they presented the voice of the bug characters to be rather interesting and likely what I would imagine it to sound like, along with presenting this vocal difference during the first stages of the game where your character turns from human to bug.

Replayability

There are multiple endings to the game, but to achieve them you really just need to play through the last level in a few different ways. Other than going for the different endings, the puzzles and platforming aspect will always be the same leaving not much reason to return to the game once it has been completed. However, it is a game with a unique feel and some unique mechanics too, so playing around with those further might be something to interest some players to pick through certain levels using the “Chapter Select” menu.

What Could Be Better

I know that we are supposed to be playing from the point-of-view of a bug, but even after getting used to it I always found it a bit hard to see the level properly. It would have been nice if the height of the eye level was raised or had a setting option to be adjusted a bit for player preference. This could also be a factor for people who suffer from motion sickness as it was definitely not a standard form of movement and I can see some users having difficulty having decent length sessions with it.

At the beginning of the game, you had the player’s character verbally state some of the objectives so that the player would know what to do. Unfortunately, there was no checklist or a current task menu that I saw that told the player their current goal. It wasn’t until the town level that I realized that the current task is listed at the top of the screen when you hold the overview button. That is definitely not an optimal location for it as new players aren’t going to look there and when coming back to the game for a new session after leaving it off somewhere, it was confusing trying to figure out what my current goal was prior to figuring out the location of the current task. I would suggest having it in either more places or just moving it all together to somewhere easier to see, such as the start menu.

Conclusion

Metamorphosis was an enjoyably unique and surreal experience! I really enjoyed playing through a game that was so different from many others I have played yet remained in the same genre that I find myself playing in a lot of the time. One of the few games I found myself wanting to see the different endings right away and just diving back in to see what the different choices turned out to lead to. It had me thinking outside the box and working with a whole fantastical world I never knew about prior.