Marko: Beyond Brave Review

 Marko: Beyond Brave is a 2D metroidvania developed by Studio Mechka. This game was put on Kickstarter in 2021 and garnered 639 backers in its initial funding period. Inspired by Balkan and Slavic folklore, will this be worth getting or would you rather spend your money on getting moustache wax instead (yes, even if you can’t physically grow one)? Well, let’s check it out.

The moustache makes him stronger.

In the land of Zagora, you play as Marko, a simple warrior with a magnificent moustache who is on a quest to save his village and the world from Entropy, which has infected the land after escaping imprisonment along with ancient evils and mythical creatures. It’ll be a difficult task though, but with the help of various characters all over the world as well as Marko’s courage, it just might be possible. The story and lore are pretty interesting but ignorable if you don’t want to deal with any of that. There are various NPCs and special lore rocks that let you learn more about the world and its inner workings.

But damn, the art style and animations are so well-done here. Characters, especially the bosses, are wonderfully animated with some of them being hypnotic to stare at, and it’s all very clear too. The tells of enemies when they attack and what can hurt you make it very easy to understand at a glance. The music is very well done too, really drawing from Slavic folk music that can turn simple exploration into a grand adventure.

Bats are annoying enough in games. Did you really have to make them explode too?

Speaking of an adventure, let’s talk about that next. You’ll be exploring various maps full of enemies and obstacles that you’ll need to go back to once you have the right tools and abilities. You’ll be fighting and jumping all throughout the game, so you best hope you’re prepared for the challenges ahead by thoroughly exploring all the nooks and crannies throughout. Now, you don’t get a World Map from the start, but do have an area map which is available at a button press. It’s smaller than I’d like it to be, but it’ll show you the entire area and your approximate location pretty well, so it’s fine.

The combat is rather challenging, but fair most of the time. You're not going to be flailing around your sword, tanking hits and dealing twice as much back. No, you'll have to take into consideration how you approach certain enemies and bosses, as they all have tells and methods of dealing with them safely. The bosses you face are more like tests of your abilities, making you either learn the mechanics of the game or die and die again. It’s actually fairly interesting and fun to figure out, even if I need quite a few tries to really get it.

There’s more to Marko than just swinging a sword: he’s quite literally turning his own bravery into strength. Your mana for the game is “Courage”, which can only be generated by dealing damage to enemies. It’s used to heal and perform special attacks and moves. This is a cool mechanic, however, the downside is that some enemies can only be killed with certain attacks and some obstacles can only be overcome with a Courage ability. If you’re out of Courage and enemies, you’re out of luck. You either need to backtrack to kill stuff or, the usually faster method, kill yourself and respawn at the nearest Light Shrine. By the way, Light Shrines only save your game and heal you. They don’t refill Courage at all, which kind of blows, but there is usually an enemy to whack on in case you need one.

Man, these backgrounds are beautiful.

Throughout your journey, you’ll come across items like Soul Fragments, iron, and herbs. These items are used to enhance your equipment and stats to make your journey a little easier. For some reason, the iron and herbs I was collecting respawn at their collection points. It would be fairly easy just to grind it out by constantly exiting and re-entering an area to grab these items until you don’t need any more. Also, you can’t use them outright. You’re going to need to visit certain vendors in order to use them… which also requires progress to be made before you can do that.

The platforming is… well, there’s no nice way to say it, but it can really, really suck. I swear, every platform has some sort of lip that forces you downwards if you aren’t absolutely perfect, which can be really annoying when dealing with small platforms. If you aren’t in the right spot when jumping, you will fall with no chance to recover. I legitimately rage quit after trying for 15 minutes in at least two separate locations, just so I could stop myself from throwing my controller. There are even invisible points where it just forces you down for no reason at alI! It’s inconsistent, which kills any sort of enjoyment I would’ve had trying to navigate a room. Now, this is made easier once you start unlocking movement abilities, but even they aren’t as reliable as they should be.

And that’s unfortunately not the only trouble I ran into. Although it was a pre-release build, I ran into some real problems. There was a softlock where an already defeated boss area raised its impassable walls, locking me into a fight that I had already taken care of. There were other potential softlocks I spotted that would require reloading your save. Also, sometimes my attacks, like throwing the polearm, just don’t work, hitting some sort of invisible object or a hitbox that makes it stop point blank. Finally, in a stroke of carelessness on my part, I started a new game by accident, erasing all my progress because the main menu defaulted to the “New Game” option instead of “Continue”. No dialogue box asking if you’re sure, no spare saves, and no safety net. It was at that point I decided I was done with the game. From the frustrations I had with the platforming, where to go, and having no idea what to do with all the items I was getting, it was the final straw.

Has some really unique bosses. If only they worked right...

I really don’t want to say that Marko: Beyond Brave is outright bad, having quite a few frustrating moments and experiences that left me with a bad taste in my mouth. It’s obvious there’s a lot of passion behind this project, with the frankly excellent music and hand-drawn animations and environments, and really strategic fights that will challenge you. To be honest, my anger could really just be me being bad at the game and having not unlocked the right abilities. There is a good metroidvania in Marko: Beyond Brave, but currently, I can’t see it.