Disclaimer: I played this on a five-year-old laptop, because that’s the best machine I have right now. Probably as a result, this game chugged pretty badly for most of my experience. I can’t really blame the game for that, so the performance department kinda gets a pass from me. Wouldn’t be fair otherwise. You’ll probably want to see other reviews if you want a definite examination of game performance, but I think can still fairly judge everything else.
Lion Quest Overview
Lion Quest is an indie platformer where you play as a blob of pixels that vaguely resembles a lion named Jethro. One of his friends, Jefferson the Fox, played around with warp portals too much and now the 3rd dimension is breaking the whole universe. To save it you have to seek out and rescue Ronald the Bear, for reasons that are never explained. You mostly jump around on colored blocks and avoid spinning ones, but you can also make 3D objects float and freeze in place with your Zen mind powers. Jump on other animals, collect coins, get to the end of the level; standard platforming jazz.
The first thing you might notice is that
This game is kind of pretty
It’s minimalist, yes, but it’s minimalism done properly: with thoughtful design and great use of color. Every shape does a great job at implying objects. Just look at that screenshot up there. You see how the pink and brown squares give the impression of blossoming trees? The warm, natural colors contrast against the cool white and blue squares arranged in mechanical-looking configurations. When I look at this screenshot, I think of a futuristic turbine facility with trees growing on the roof and walls, like climbing vines. With very basic shapes, you get more than levels; you get environments. They feel fanciful, but real and thought out. I love that.
Hell, here’s another screenshot:
Simple beauty. That’s what this is.
Also, there’s this random-sounding plinking modular synth music in the background that ties the whole techno-zen feeling together. It’s a real soothing atmosphere, and that’s what Lion Quest is best at.
Sadly the game itself is less soothing, because
The platforming is sloppy and shallow
Lion Quest has kind of a slide-y momentum like the Super Mario games have, except it’s more even more slide-y and there’s no tap jump. That means all jumps are exactly the same regardless of how long you hold the jump button. These two things are huge problems because the game routinely forces you to jump on teeny tiny little squares smaller than your character is, and often in hard to reach places. You’re liable to either slide right off them, or hit something deadly above you because you can’t make short hops. Also, the hitboxes are not as solid as they should be, so you might fall right through some blocks if you don’t land on them right. It’s mighty infuriating. This game is a precision platformer without any of the precision. Kind of undermines the whole “Zen” thing when the game makes me want to snap my keyboard in half.
As for the “shallow” problem, that requires some explanation. This game takes a lot things from Fez, in that everything looks 2D but it’s actually 3D, that 3D is tearing the universe apart, and that you have the ability to manipulate 3D objects while on a 2D plane. So there are a lot of times where you’re moseying along in a cute little 2D-looking level and THIS starts happening:
When this happens, you can do two things:
- Turn off gravity for 3D objects, called Zen, and
- Freeze them in place, called Master Zen.
Sound like some huge potential for crazy platforming and out-of-the-box puzzle-solving? Sure does! Someone should have told Dracula’s Cave Studios about it, because they make almost no use of those skills. They’re barely used and you get to do nothing interesting with them. Sometimes you get some falling blocks you have to freeze in place to make new platforms, and literally nothing else. Even that you only get to do a couple of times, and it’s not introduced as a mechanic until halfway through the game.
It’s tragic to see how much squandered potential there is in those two moves. There’s almost no point to the 3D elements at all. You could scrap them entirely and nothing substantial would be lost. That’s just sad.
Multiplayer
…it exists, I guess. It’s got a co-op story mode where the other player contributes nothing, and a vs. mode where you slowly jump on each others’ heads until you get bored. For me it took about 15 seconds. Shouldn’t have even bothered.
I mean…it’s okay
Lion Quest really does look nice, and most of the time it is pretty relaxing, but it’s got too many shortcomings for me to do anything but hesitantly call it good. The whole thing just kinda comes off as an exceptionally well done class project. One that they’re selling the public for $12.
But if you like how it looks, Lion Quest isn’t bad enough for me to outright call it “bad”. It’s just a little disappointing. In fact, a lot disappointing. There’s nothing sadder to me than seeing a game that had it in itself to be great and instead just ended up like…well, like Lion Quest.
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