After a bit of a hiatus I'm back this week with a game a played a lot of while on a short vacation, Murasaki Baby which is a side-scrolling puzzle platformer with horror elements from Italian developers Ovosonico released exclusively for the PS Vita in late 2014. The game was designed by Massimo Gurrani who is better known for his work on titles such as Killer 7, No More Heroes and Shadows of the Dammed, all of which are games I have played and loved.
I originally saw this game when it was revealed briefly in a Sony press conference at E3 2014 and at the time I had no intention of owning a Vita but in all honesty this game looked like it was going to be amazing from the brief look we got and the visuals made it really stick out in my mind as a game Id like to try eventually if I ever got a Vita. However after that E3 I never heard of the game again, it was only with PS+ that I remembered this games existence and jumped at the chance to play it after being so drawn to it the previous year.
I honestly could not wait to play it and saw my recent vacation as a chance to really get into it during travel and while I did play it first, I slowly moved on to other games and found this title to be much more of a chore, saving it mainly for the inescapable plane ride to and from my destination, it's fair to say I was disappointed with this game as a whole, but this is not to say it does not have it's strong points as a welcome edition to the PS Vitas lacking exclusives list.
First though I should explain exactly what this game is about and how it plays. The story of the game while not in depth focuses on a character known only as 'Baby' who lost her mother and needs to traverse a world filled with childhood fears and at times disturbing imagery in order to reunite with her, pretty simple. As he traverses through the world she begins to meet a number of other children however each child is help captive in some form or another and it is up to you to free them from their fears or problems.
Gameplay wise the controls are relatively simple and generally touch screen focussed as you guide Baby via dragging her balloon with the touch screen through various obstacles and eventually learn new techniques such as turning the Vita upside down to progress or using the swipe function to be able to use a certain ability on the world around you such as freezing a certain platform or even having a monster in the background constantly blow air into your balloon to re inflate it after a puncture.
These sort of abilities are a real strength for the game and are perhaps its strongest point, especially towards the end of the game where you're suddenly using all different abilities one after another in order to get through the level, while playing these latter levels I was actually having a great time. Unfortunately they were short lived as just as soon as they began the game was suddenly over, I really felt let down.
Although I was not really enjoying my time overall with the game the visuals were something that actually kept me interested in playing just so I could see what new creepy world Id be thrown into next. I found each design to be quite unique especially in terms of the characters, with the heads flipped over and their mouths above their eyes yet the hair still being on the 'top' of the head. Overall the visuals were quite creepy and even Tim Burton esq, although it is said they were inspired by American artist and writer Edward Gorey.
The primary use of Black and White really intensified the feeling of being a child who is more or less alone and depressed in a strange world as well as pushing the weird atmosphere upon the player. I think the use of the balloon was also pretty neat as it was at times the only coloured part of the game which stresses the importance of it as your 'life' but also that this item is the child's safety net, it's what keeps her calm in a otherwise scary place while she searches for her mother. While there were these areas that I enjoyed I have a lot to say about what I found to be lacking in the game.
By far the worst part of the game for me was the clunky controls, which is surprising as the game is mostly touch screen based. The primary way you move the child is to press the balloon with your finger and drag it in the direction you want to move in, this seems simple enough however the speed at which Baby moves is tediously slow and if you ever try and move just a touch faster than a snails pace then the child falls over, cries and takes a few seconds to get back up, this is super frustrating towards the last level where you actually have to try and move at some speed.
What's worse is the odd time you have to turn around and the character will just turn and instantly turn back the other way again making it take a super long time just to get them facing the correct direction. Even when you have to use the touch screen to touch enemies in order to kill them, this sometimes is so inaccurate that you'll end up getting yourself killed numerous times. This was without a doubt the point which made me refuse to play the game for a number of days, I just could not bring myself to fuck around with the awful speed the child walked at.
The game was about 3 hours long which ordinarily I would not have too much of a problem with, however because the difficulty was really really easy for the majority of the game it felt like it was over way too quickly, it was only the last level where I actually had to do a few more attempts. This made me feel like the game had such a missed potential, the devs really could have put a bit more time into the level design and come up with levels more akin to the final one where it gets quite intricate, I feel like they really let themselves down in this respect.
I felt the soundtrack was really nothing special either and I'm not a trophy collector but I thought it was really dumb that the only way to get the gold trophy was to listen to the only real song within the game during the credits, the trophies may as well not have been in the game to begin with as they were all to just complete each level with only one requiring you to do something missable.
I think I was a real shame that this game wasn't that good because the Vita as it is now is failing as a system, so much so that Sony outside of Japan have officially dropped support for it and class it more as a PS4 accessory. I love my Vita, mostly due to PS+ and I know there are a number of great games for it and amazing features such as crossplay, but I feel like Sony really didn't learn from the mistakes of the PSP and shot themselves in the foot, there are some great games for the Vita like, Senran Kagura, Danganronpa, Tearaway and Gravity Rush but it's only the former two that have any sequels on the system, it seems as though it's mostly Japanese games that dominate the system.
Now this isnt a bad thing and I love playing them but even the PSP had a number of Western games and exclusives at this point in its lifetime. I think I'm happy because I essentially got this game for 'free' due to PS+, as I'd only feel a huge sense of buyer remorse if I had paid full price for this title, If you're a die hard Vita fan who wants to play all the exclusives made for the console then Id recommend waiting for this to go on sale but overall I would advise you not to waste your time which really is a shame.
Thanks for checking this out, I'll hopefully get back to some sort of schedule soon!
