Каждый раз когда ты общаешься с таинственным магазинным челом, чувствуешь себя на сеансе стендап комедии

Totally overrated and not even close to what the reviews suggest.

First of all, The Messenger isn't difficult at all—it's pretty easy. Secondly, the writing is cheesy and not worth engaging with; skipping it is the better option. The OST is great, though.

The worst part is the overall movement. The developers decided to limit the player's directional attacks. You can only strike left or right—no upwards, no downwards, no diagonal. I genuinely don't understand what such a terrible design choice is supposed to contribute to the overall experience. Does it aim to make you feel disabled? Because that's exactly what it does—you feel limited and restricted. Furthermore, the player moves so slowly. You end up playing as a "disabled" ninja who can barely walk.

The enemies are all one-dimensional and quite boring, with the bosses being marginally better at best.

Edit:
Gliding and jumping are mapped to the same button. If you want to glide after hitting a target mid-air, you can’t do so until you double-jump. If you’re not intending to double-jump, you’re out of luck and forced to deal with the awkward mechanic.

The time-travel mechanic adds nothing meaningful to the game besides a few flashy effects. It could have been removed entirely without impacting the overall experience. The backtracking in the second half is tedious and frustrating. The Metroidvania elements feel like a complete failure.

My biggest issue, however, is the platforming. The game feels overly restricted and limited, which doesn’t make the platforming challenging—it just makes it boring. It doesn’t require any real skill or mastery. The mechanics like cloud-jumping, gliding, and rope-darting are too simple and lack depth. The slow pace only makes things worse, and it all feels like a missed opportunity for engaging gameplay.

Very clunky platformer compared to games like Celeste, Shovel Knight or Blasphemous. Weird hitboxes, questionable controls. The most baffling decision is not having directional attacks like hollow knight, which means if enemies come at you from up or down, ya die.

It's a real shame, since the art direction, music and dialogue is all great.