Maroc - 3RD-STRIKE.COM - A La Une - 11/Jan 00:01

Maki: Paw of Fury – Review

We have a bit of a love-hate relationship with publisher RedDeer.Games. Their Switch catalog includes some fantastic games, like Cyber Protocol or Cook for Love and they give indie developers a chance to actually put their games on the eShop. The downside of this is that they seemingly throw whatever they can at the wall, hoping it sticks. RedDeer.Games’ catalog also includes things like a variety of hentai puzzle games and “software” like nOS. You’re never sure what you’re going to get from the publisher. We do like to roll the dice, though, which is how we ended up taking a look at Maki: Paw of Fury. The red score box in the upper corner of this page already gives away that the game didn’t land on the good side of the RedDeer.Games catalog. Read on for a more detailed explanation of what’s wrong with Maki. Story We’re off to a bad start, as Maki’s story doesn’t just lack substance, but it’s also very poorly written. The narrative is your typical damsel-in-distress fare. Maki’s friend has been kidnapped by evil forces and it’s up to our foxy protagonist and his friends to save her. The game’s text is very poorly written, as if Argentinian developer Bacord Games’ original Spanish dialogue was simply put into Google Translate. This made it very difficult to get invested in the paper-thin story, as the badly translated story and in-game instructions served more as a distraction than anything else. Graphics Visuals are where Maki truly shines. The game’s characters are lovingly rendered in absolutely gorgeous and surprisingly fluid pixel art, juxtaposed against equally impressive backgrounds. While we could have done with more visual variety when it comes to basic enemies, we were still impressed by what the game had to offer. Maki’s visual performance was also solid, with the game keeping up a steady frame rate even when there were dozens of enemies on screen simultaneously. Sound Although Maki’s visuals provided a glimmer of hope, the game’s audio took us back to nosedive territory. It’s not that things are particularly bad when it comes to Maki’s soundscape, but what’s present here is just very bland and generic. The music in particular quickly grew stale. The sound effects lacked oomph, and voice acting was expectedly absent. Gameplay There was a time when side-scrolling beat ‘em up games were a much more common sight than they are today. When we do get one, it’s typically tied to a license, like Scott Pilgrim or the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, or an outright re-release of an arcade classic as part of a retro collection. In that regard, Maki stands out by being both its own original IP as well as offering a modernized take on the genre. Unfortunately, Maki’s gameplay can’t live up to that of its predecessors from the 90s. Instead, this monotonous brawler made us long for days gone by. The game is very lacking in enemy variety, although that is something we’ve seen in other games. However, when we say lacking in enemy variety, we’re not just talking about visual design, but simply about how the endless hordes of snakes and bears act. There are no different attack patterns to figure out here. In fact, the basic attack pattern of grunts is pretty much non-existent, and they’ll stand there waiting for you to punch them in the face. The only times when Maki gets remotely challenging outside of boss fights is when you’re being swarmed by dozens of enemies simultaneously. Even then nothing interesting happens, as you’ll still be button-mashing without putting any thoughts or strategy behind things. And when we say button mashing, we mean that you’re hitting the same single Y button over and over again hundreds of times. The game may pretend that the B button also has a point but in practice, your second, slower attack is actually less powerful than your main one, so there is no point in ever using it. You’ll eventually charge up your special attack meter, but the A+Y button combo that unleashes that feels very awkward. If only there was an option to remap buttons. To make matters worse, there is no sense of progress or reward in Maki, as you won’t level up or gain new attacks or abilities. It’s just the same Y button spamming experience throughout. If you were hoping that the boss battles would redeem Maki, then we’re sorry to disappoint you here as well. Boss battles aren’t satisfying in any way, shape, or form and feel like prolonged and more difficult versions of the same mind-numbing button-mashing hell. However, should you lose against a boss, you’ll have to replay their entire level before you can face them again. There are no mid-level save points to be found here. We should also note that the level designs themselves are questionable too. They are overly long, as you’re literally beating up hundreds of grunts that take way too long to kick the bucket over and over again. Healing items are unevenly spread too. You’ll go for long stretches of not finding any, only to then pick up several ones in quick succession. It’s not surprising that the result comes across more as a proof of concept than a finished game. There are three separate playable characters, and they supposedly all offer unique attack patterns. However, with no upgrades or abilities to earn and no real sense of progress, they all boil down to the same single-button mashing nonsense, and there is no replayability. We’d argue that you’ve seen everything there is to see about Maki’s gameplay within the first fifteen minutes of playing. If you do make it to the end of the game, you’ll be rewarded with an alternate skin for your character, which is underwhelming, to say the least. Adding insult to injury, there are more skins available as paid DLC. Maki’s base game comes in at €10.99. That may not seem like a huge amount of money these days, but there simply isn’t enough substance here to justify that price tag. The game doesn’t even offer a co-op mode, although it’s unlikely you’ll find a friend who wants to play through this snoozefest together anyway. Conclusion We’d say that Maki’s visuals are the game’s only redeeming feature, but of course, just looking good isn’t enough to give the game a passing grade. It’s a shame too, because this isn’t a brawler that is fundamentally broken per se. It’s as if Bacord Games completed the foundation and then called it a day instead of adding the stuff that would make Maki interesting…. Or at least fun. As it stands, Maki: Paw of Fury is simply a bad game.