Mask of Mists tries to bring back a “Myst” of the olden days. Going for the adventure genre but adding a few twists to make it more interesting. After a release on PC in May, every current-gen console owner can now try their hands on the fantasy world created by 9 Eyes Game Studio.
Simple story
Mask of Mists isn’t trying to overcomplicate things. You are a mercenary who is tasked with finding a missing person. That person is the Archmage of the Academy who was investigating the depths of the “Infected Territory”. There is nothing much else to say about the story except that the world of Mask of Mists is pretty empty except for the occasional creepy crawler. These creatures of the Abyss were created when the area was exposed to extreme amounts of magic.
Adventure game
The game isn’t trying to be anything else than a simple adventure game. The first thing you need to do is figure out how to leave your start area. How you got there and why you need to put some objects on pillars to escape the place is never quite explained. In the next area, you find the house of the archmage but the rest of the world is still inaccessible because the lever to open the gate is missing. With some searching, you’ll eventually find the lever and another area opens up which will make more sense to some items you already gathered in the first few areas.
It’s safe to say the developers wanted to make an adventure game with some puzzle elements and didn’t really find a way to properly tie everything in with the story. All in all, this didn’t bother me too much since the puzzles and adventure elements were really well made. Although nothing is overly hard or complicated, they really used all the elements of the area to create a nice flow to solving the problems presented. The backtracking was a bit too extensive for my own personal liking but besides that minor flaw, I thought it was well made.
Unnecessary fighting
To mix things up, you sometimes need to engage in battle with the magical creatures found in the world. This was done so, to mix things up but grew old way too fast. Swinging with the sword never felt like fun to me. After a while, I figured out I could just swing and dash back which made the battles obsolete. I could have done without them to be quite honest. They were more a nuisance in between solving puzzles.
Twitchy world
The sounds and visuals used for Mask of Mists were a bit underwhelmed, to say the least. Now to be fair, the simplistic approach to the graphics in combination with the vibrant colors actually worked for me. The blocky world took a moment to get used too but didn’t bother me all that much. The camera experience I had on the other hand did infuriate me. The game had a strange way of handling turning which made the world look contorted at times. The soundtrack was quite boring and too repetitive.
Conclusion
Mask of Mists is an easy Action-Adventure game (with more emphasis on the adventure) which would be best suited for younger kids. The puzzles are well thought of but the battle system is quite laughable at first and becomes annoying after a while. One added bonus: There are Leprechauns who sell you items and potions and Leprechauns are terrifying but fun.
