Review | MindSeize - Do You Mind Reading This Review?

Personally, I’m of the belief that Metroidvanias are the genre that most epitomises the medium of video games. If you want to play a first-person shooter in real life, you do paintball or airsoft. If you want to do racing, go go-karting. If you want to do fighting, um, join a martial arts gym? The point is that the core concept of exploration, gaining rewards, and then returning to where you started for more exploring is a concept that can only really be done in video games. Maybe this opinion stems from my childhood when I received a Gameboy Advance alongside my first game, Metroid Fusion. It’s been well over a decade since I last played it, but despite never seeing the ending (I got lost in a cave), I still have incredibly fond memories of the title. From the ominous scene where an evil Samus is walking along a dark hallway, to my older friends crowding around the Game Boy because the death screen showed Samus in a bikini. These moments led to Metroidvanias becoming a genre that has stuck with me throughout my life as I have many fond memories of them. It’s why I begrudgingly say that despite some good moments, MindSeize is a rather forgettable title in the genre.

MindSeize was originally released on Steam in 2020 and self-published by Kamina Dimension. The story follows Mordred Chad Fox (referred to as M.C), an investigator turned bounty hunter on a quest to destroy the evil group known as “The Ascended” after they crippled him and stole his daughter’s mind. To do this, he teams up with an old friend’s spaceship crew to utilize their “Mag”; a robot that he operates remotely via a neural link.

As you can tell by the synopsis above, the story isn’t anything to write home about. It’s a standard tale of a widowed father on a mission to save his child. MindSeize tells this story predominantly through dialogue boxes, although the beginning and ending cutscenes are done in a comic format. Unfortunately, instead of using the art style to help influence the game’s tone like say Max Payne, the art itself is rather simplistic, looking like a 2000s webcomic. 

The rest of the game’s presentation is also pretty bland as I can’t remember any songs from the game, and while grammatically correct, some of the dialogue could’ve used a lookover since it can read as very flat. Credit where it is due, I applaud the team for incorporating the protagonist’s disability in the story when the main antagonist uses M.C’s condition as an argument towards abandoning his organic body in favour of his Mag permanently (along with understanding why they stole his daughter’s mind). It’s a theme that I wish the game touched on more, as to even call it a theme is a bit of an overstatement. I say these criticisms, but I ultimately know that they are of little importance. The game doesn’t pride itself on its story, but on its fast-paced Metroidvania action. Action that actually is pretty fun.

The game’s combat consists of two main weapon types, melee and ranged. Along with these, you also unlock other equipment (referred to as mods) such as grenades, a flamethrower, and a small attack that hits enemies immediately around you. Energy allows you to use these mods, along with specific high-damaging melee and ranged attacks. While the weapons are straightforward, they do their job well enough as they’re all responsive and feel pretty good. The enemy types and designs are very similar to weapons as they aren’t anything special, but serve the job they were created for with decent enough enemy variety. This variety is nice as the best thing about combat is how well the pair of ranged and melee weapons function as a whole. 

Unsurprisingly, ranged weapons are a lot safer, allowing you to avoid risks but slowing down the pace of the fight, while melee weapons are more damaging but risky. This is rather odd praise, but I loved the arc of most melee weapons while jumping. A good jumping melee attack in a side scroller can completely enlighten your opinion of the game (if you played Megaman X4 as Zero, you’ll understand) and enlighten me it did. This is especially true of the starting weapon, as it slashes in such a large, satisfying arc that I got a short jolt of dopamine every time I used it. Unfortunately though, in order to use the jumping attack, you first have to jump, bringing us to the first noticeable problem with MindSeize’s gameplay, If you are playing on a PlayStation controller, Cross is not the jump button, Circle is.

It’s something that doesn’t seem like a big deal, but the more you play the game, the more it really gets to you. My first hour involved me fighting off enemies and whenever I wanted to dodge an attack or use that sweet aerial slash, I would do nothing but get hit. Usually, in a side scroller, you rest your thumb on the fire button, hovering over the jump button as well for when you need to use it. When playing MindSeize, I often used one finger to fire my gun and another finger to jump, not using my thumb at all. Having unique controls in a game isn’t bad, but it should become comfortable once you get used to them. It was a very frustrating experience and every time I failed to jump I kept asking myself “Why didn’t anyone realise this might have been an issue?” and to be honest, it wouldn’t be, but the game doesn’t let you remap buttons. 

I went into the controls menu and toyed around for a bit but couldn’t find any way to change the individual buttons’ function. Perhaps the team at Kamina Dimension didn’t think too much about it and wanted to make jumping easier for players who predominantly use melee, but I feel it would be better to keep it close to the fire button so players could maintain steady damage while jumping. Regardless, the issue could’ve been fixed with the ability to remap buttons, a feature that would also allow those with physical disabilities to comfortably play their way. It’s a shame because zipping around the map is so much fun, but this design choice prevents MindSeize from reaching its full platforming potential, potential that could’ve been elevated since the map design itself may be the best part of the game.

Thanks to rogue-like indie games with procedurally generated areas being in vogue, a well-designed map is something that must be praised. A staple of the genre, players will come across areas that can’t be accessed yet, so they need to make a mental note to come back once they have the right mods. I spent a good portion of the game, running around, looking at areas of the map I hadn’t cleared out yet, and then exploring them to find new mods, which are another highlight. The game is jam-packed with mods, and each of them can drastically alter your attacks as no two are identical. It makes exploration fun, but at the same time, I also wish the game helped you out a bit more in finding them. 

The only real assistance the game contains is one specific mod that causes a sound to emit whenever you enter a room with an undiscovered secret. It’s not a bad way of notifying you that there is something you can collect but isn’t too helpful if it happens to be in a large room with many platforms. It would’ve also been nice if you could mark spots on your map for currently locked areas, but alas, all you get is a sound if you happen to enter one of those rooms. This is especially frustrating as the game doesn’t contain a percentage of items found per planet, so you need to go through every room in the game multiple times if you want to mod hunt. Furthermore, some of the hidden objects aren’t locked behind doors, but instead behind secretly destructible blocks, often without any indication that they’re breakable. I wouldn’t mind this too much if it was just health or energy upgrades, but I get concerned as these missed mods could’ve changed my strategy towards bosses I was struggling with. And struggling with bosses, you will.

The game contains 14 bosses with varying difficulty as some of them are very straightforward, while others require a bit more strategy. Aside from the map design, the thing I thought most impressive about the game was the fact that all of the boss fights actually stand out from each other pretty well, resulting in some strategies being possible or impossible depending on the fight itself. I think the developers knew this as the game includes the ability to replay any boss fight, as well as a boss rush mode if you want to take them all on at once. Unfortunately, you’re only able to use the starting weapons during this, but it is nice to show how much you’ve grown as you easily clear a fight that previously gave you a lot of trouble. I myself am especially grateful for this, as it allowed me to replay a boss that I only beat the first time thanks to a glitch, which was unfortunately just one of several I encountered.

Glitches in gaming have always been common but ideally, they won’t affect your feelings towards a game. Glitches affected my feelings towards the game. Along with the previously mentioned glitch where a boss was defeated instead of changing to his second form, I also encountered more against different boss battles. One fight saw me pitted against two enemies at once and while my attacks were doing damage, their life bars were not going down. The fight itself wasn’t bad, but it was a bit annoying as I didn’t know which one I should target since they both appeared to be at full health. Another glitch happened on the last boss where instead of changing into their second form, they kept walking into a wall, forcing me to reload my save and restart the fight. I must give credit where it is due though as Kamina Dimension appears to be doing thorough QA testing, resulting in my biggest complaint being fixed already. 

During my playthrough, I had two weapons that simply did not work; the handgun and the spear. I was able to use both of the weapons well if I was on the ground, but the problem with them was their refusal to function while jumping. What turned them from an inconvenience to impractical though was the fact that attempting to do these actions resulted in me being unable to move for a few seconds, leaving the game to process what happened before handing me the controls again. Thanks to the damage I received when I did try them out, I didn’t use 25% of the weapons in my playthrough. This was a rather scathing part when I first wrote this review, but I must instead use this opportunity to praise the game. In an era where we see many developers releasing half-baked products at launch, it's nice to see some that are working towards fixing those issues as soon as possible. So did glitches affect my feelings towards the game? Yes, but it makes me glad to know that others won’t be having the massive problems I did.

Despite those feelings, I did enjoy my time with MindSeize. The weapons feel good when they work and exploration is fun if flawed. The sad thing is, that’s about all I can say regarding the title. Kamina Dimension created something that has a good foundation, but the things that really make it stand out are just some odd design choices that end up hurting it. If you’re a die-hard Metroidvania fan, I would definitely recommend it as a decent time waster, but not to a majority of gamers as there are many other options that do what MindSeize does but better.