5/5 ★ – kariyanine's review of The Messenger.

Ninja Gaiden on the Nintendo Entertainment System is one of my favorite games of all time and a recent entry into the Perfectly Sane Video Game Hall of Fame. It is also one of the main inspirations for 2018’s action-platformer, The Messenger, my second favorite game of 2018. And now, after my third playthrough of this title (on three different platforms), it too is cementing itself as one of my favorite games of all time. The Messenger starts off as a straightforward Ninja Gaiden homage. It’s styled as an 8-bit game, both visually and musically. You play as a ninja who’s village is attacked by a demon king and because of this you must embark on a quest to deliver a scroll to the peak of a mountain. The levels are pretty straight forward with some well designed and challenging platforming puzzles. These levels are often wrapped up with an area boss that tasks you with using all the skills and unlocks that you’ve learned and earned up to that point. It’s all quite excellent and if the game ended when you reach the mountain peak, deliver the scroll, and defeat the area boss, I would have been super pleased with it. But it doesn’t, instead the game shifts and becomes Metroid like with a massive intertwining map and a more sprawling quest that requires you to go all over and collect a bunch of items to unlock the final area of the game. Oh, and it jumps into the future and starts to present itself as a 16-bit styled game with a time traveling mechanic that sees you jump from 16-bit (future) to 8-bit (past) which will open up new ways to traverse and progress. The gameplay is the big draw for me here but it would be poor form to not discuss the self aware comedy that underlies the entire narrative. From direct call outs to Ninja Gaiden, Contra, and Metroid, to the amusing parables the shopkeeper will tell if you talk with him, the game has a tongue firmly in its cheek and it works wonderfully. I could heep non-stop praise on The Messenger. It’s truly a wonderfully crafted game and more importantly, a fun one. I see this joining titles like Super Mario Bros. and Final Fantasy as yearly replays for me. I mean, it’s already there with three plays in three years since its initial release.