Incredible Mandy may not have the most attention grabbing name of the year but it just might live up to its moniker. Developed and published by Dotoyou Games, Incredible Mandy is a striking puzzle platformer that borrows heavily from games like The Legend of Zelda, most specifically Breath of the Wild.

[perfectpullquote align=”right” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=”14″] Developer: Dotoyou Games

Publisher: Dotoyou Games

Genre: Puzzle, Platformer

Platform: PC [reviewed], Nintendo Switch, PS4

Release: Nove 26, 2018[/perfectpullquote] [/perfectpullquote]

Look, if you’re going to take from another game, might as well take from one of the best of this generation. But what makes Incredible Mandy really special is in how it presents its story: a story that’s incredibly deep, touching and presented in such a way that keeps you invested in the experience.

The game explores the memories of a brother and sister, buried deeply within their dreams. Each of these dreams represents one of the games huge worlds with a boss battle that represents the core of the dream made manifest. It’s an interesting concept that deals with ideas such as salvation and redemption.

I don’t want to give things away but you are essentially in a coma and reliving your shared past before a major catastrophe nearly killed you. It’s not a complicated story, but it’s told in a fun way that makes you search out answers to fill in the blanks on what you are experiencing.

Throughout each stage there are boxes to find and open, much like you would in the Legend of Zelda. But instead of getting items and upgrades, these boxes will usually present you a comic book page that expands on the story and your place within it. It’s a neat way to incentivize exploration, and encourages peeking about every nook and cranny.

Incredible Mandy is a puzzle platformer at its core, so you can expect to be doing quite a bit of jumping around and solving various puzzles. These start out really easy, allowing you to understand the basics of the mechanics, before building layer upon layer in difficulty.

The interesting bit comes from the use of the ethereal sword and bow and arrow that you carry with you. Each of these weapons share the same power meter that drops with continued use. But don’t worry too much as the game places a lot of recharge orbs around each level so you’ll never really run out of juice at a bad time.

Many of the games puzzles incorporate your weapons in some fun ways. You can stab your sword multiple times into the ground and into objects and then use them as makeshift explosives. You can place as many as your meter allows, and it wasn’t uncommon for me to string half a dozen of so like I was feeding a long explosive charge.

Each time you stab your sword you have a limited range to stab another so that they automatically link together. It’s a neat mechanic that the game loves to push to its limit. You’ll often be faced with puzzles that require you to string swords together so that you open several doors and activate switches and platforms all at once.

This adds to some really wild puzzles that are sure to give your brain a real challenging workout. And when the game starts incorporating multiple tasks in different parts of a stage section, you’ll be scratching your head trying to make all the pieces fit. Boss fights even incorporate these sorts of puzzles so you aren’t just slashing at everything and really are thinking about what you are doing.

Incredible Mandy does feature combat, but it isn’t the core of the experience. In fact, the combat with the few enemies that you’ll encounter in each stage is probably the worst part of the experience overall. There isn’t any  lock-on for your sword, so it all comes down to mashing the attack button when needed. You can roll and dodge but most fights will just have you slashing in place.

These enemies will hit you a few times but the game is pretty lenient in terms of hearts, at least on the standard difficulty settings. Later on in the game the tougher enemies can’t even be killed and will require you to stealthy sneak by them, or use the environment to freeze them in place for a time, or drop parts of the environment on them.

Thankfully, the puzzles the game throws at you are so fantastic that you can easily put up with some of the really bland combat. I understand that the enemies are here to mix up the adventure, but I probably would have been happier without them altogether, or if the game just gave the player a lock-on button like in Zelda.

On the visual front Incredible Mandy is pretty stunning. I’m the sort of person that always says less is more, and this game does so much with so little. The graphics are fairly low-poly but the pastel-like filter the game employs is downright gorgeous. It’s one of the most beautiful 3D platformers from an indie studio that I’ve ever seen.

 

The animations are also smooth and fluid and give the game a very relaxing look and feel. The music sure helps make this case with you really feeling like you’re lost inside a dream world. Incredible Mandy is a really atmospheric experience that I would say is a mix between Breath of the Wild and RiME.

The game comes from a studio I’ve never heard of, but looking on Steam this is their only release. If that’s the case we are potentially looking and a team that is poised to do some really incredible things in the future. Incredible Mandy is by no means a masterpiece, but it’s built on the sort of strong foundation that masterpieces are cut from.

I can easily recommend this title for fans of 3D platformers, especially those that want a nice challenge in terms of puzzles. I found myself playing this one for extended periods, easily losing track of the time. There are a tons of levels here and each world  does a fantastic job of changing the visual style so the game never gets stale.

But no game is perfect and Incredible Mandy is no exception; although, it’s quality is far higher that some AAA release that I’ve played this year. I already knocked the bland and generic combat, but on top of that is the sometimes inconsistent collision detection.

 

There were times where I clearly made a jump only for the game not to register it, or have me bounce right off, even though the grab animation was in process. Then there’s the triggered events that can get a bit messed up if you die during them. You may die in the middle of some set-piece and be fast-forwarded to the end, or end up stuck and have to kill yourself to restart the section.

There are also some optimization issues that are really noticeable in the massive boss fights. The boss battles are pretty incredible experiences, but be ready for your PC to take a hit with things sometimes dropping into the single digits during huge set-pieces. Thankfully, a lot of these issues could probably be fixed with a patch or two down the road, and none of them kill the experience.

And while I really appreciate how the story is told from a narrative point of view, the anime cutscenes and comic pages don’t quite fit with the visual style of the game. Each is great in their own right, but the game visuals, anime cutscenes and the name of the game just don’t quite gel as well as they should.

Lastly, some of the puzzles might be a bit obtuse for the casual gamer out there and the game isn’t always super clear on how you should tackle something. A few sections of a stage can be breeze and then a single puzzle could stop you for a good long while. It’s a well designed game but one that has random spikes in puzzle difficulty.

All that said, Incredible Mandy is a pretty incredible experience from a studio that really needs to be on your radar. It doesn’t push the puzzle-platformer genre forward, but it’s one of the most rewarding and wholesome gaming experiences of 2018, and I really hope the game gets the attention it rightfully deserves.

“Incredible Mandy is pretty impressive and might just end up being the hidden gem release of 2018″

Final Score:

4/5

 

About Author