Review | Marko: Beyond Brave - Brave But Flawed
Marko: Beyond Brave first found life through a Kickstarter that began on July 13th of 2021, and marketed itself as a “2D action-adventure game: A blend of classic cartoons, Balkan folklore, and Slavic myth.” Not even three weeks later on July 29th, the Kickstarter reached its goal of 18,500 USD.
According to the developer, Studio Mechka, 33% of the Kickstarter funds went towards art. Marko: Beyond Brave is hand-animated and it’s one of the main selling points. Overall, the game looks great and is animated very well, with every boss (with the unfortunate exception of one) having impressively smooth animation. However, this expensive and time-consuming animation style has a huge drawback that leads to my biggest complaint; enemies do not have varied movesets. My best guess is that there simply wasn’t enough funding or time to animate more attacks. Combat suffers as a result because while Marko has a bunch of ways to deal with enemies, enemies will showcase their entire moveset ten seconds into fighting them.
10% of the Kickstarter funds apparently went towards sound design. Sadly none of the ambient sound design is particularly great, and often reminded me of sound effects I used to hear in flash games. The same can't be said for background music though, because the background music and soundtrack in general is genuinely catchy and solid throughout.
30% of the Kickstarter funds went towards development, which is a bit vague, so everything that I haven’t mentioned yet is going here. The story takes a backseat to everything else, and most of it is told through lore columns that are spread across each area. These lore columns are actually pretty interesting to read, and some of them are necessary to figure out how to progress. However, absolutely nothing tells us about the protagonist, Marko, himself. All that I know about him is that he’s a hero and a woodsman. No character talks about him or his history, and Marko himself has no dialogue. The dragon shown off in all the trailers also never shows up again, at least not in the bad ending. The only aspects of the world of Marko: Beyond Brave that are explained are the darkness affecting the world, the endgame area, and the last boss. However, being a Metroidvania, it’s not the end of the world for the story to not be center stage.
Where Marko: Beyond Brave really shined for me is in its platforming and movement, as it was really the only time I felt challenged. There’s a variety of platforming obstacles that were thrown at me, and while they were pretty simple, they felt satisfying to move through. There are timed platforms, lasers, spikes, and more obstacles that keep things fresh. Especially later in the game, as platforming sections can get a little difficult and are lengthy enough that they ended up killing me a few times. The only drawback to this metroidvania’s exploration is Marko gets the ability to throw a spear in a straight line that he can teleport to after it connects with something, and it has an agonisingly slow animation. This spear is used in a few of the platforming puzzles, and having to press the button to throw the spear and then reposition it so it could land a second later was frustrating.
I also can’t really speak on much of the cultural influence present because, well, it’s not my culture. I have little to no knowledge of Balkan folklore or Slavic myth, so if there were any easter eggs or clever references, they flew over my head. (For example,I found out while researching the game that the name Marko was chosen because it’s a reference to folk stories about a medieval ruler of the same name!) However, it does make Marko stand out compared to its contemporaries in the genre.
Marko: Beyond Brave is beyond flawed, and needs a lot more funding and polish before it becomes more than the sum of its parts. While the animation and art style are great, it doesn’t make up for the disappointing combat and general lack of depth. It feels as if the game is early access, rather than a full release. Given more time and funding, however, I have no doubt many, if not all, of these issues could be fixed in patches or a sequel. Until then, I can’t recommend Marko: Beyond Brave.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/studiomechka/marko-beyond-brave
