The Messenger is one of my favourite games I've ever played. I shared my some of my thoughts about it in my best entertainment of 2024 post but I'll share more of my thoughts here:
- The game was a great example of "you don't need amazing graphics for a game to be awesome", the creative platforming puzzles, variance of enemies and bosses and beautiful 2D art style made the game one of my favourites
- The were odes to certain classic games, obviously all Metroidvania games but also some Donkey Kong Country vibes at certain times
- The humour within the dialogue between characters was great
- The riddles as to where the next clue was when the game became a Metroidvania was weird but I came to love it, I often had to use hints as I couldn't figure out where to go next
- Switching between the NES and SNES graphics and music via portals was a really creative mechanic, towards the end of the game there were multiple puzzles that required jumping through these portals in a certain order to progress which I enjoyed
- The music itself was phenomenal, it was so catchy and whimsical
- The story was weird but fun
- There were sections that reminded me of the frustration of a game like Celeste where you just can't progress through a certain platforming section, but I love this challenge and feeling of "1 more try..."
