Mable & The Wood

I simply cannot recommend this. The idea isn't necessarily without merit, replacing conventional platformer controls with a system based on shape shifting, but the execution is severely lacking. Movement never felt natural, and taking damage or dying felt less like my fault than because I was spending half my effort fighting the controls. Or because of random glitches, where I'd be killed because I suddenly got stuck in a wall or would be launched in the opposite direction to the one I was holding. Apart from gameplay, there's not else to recommend either. The art design is bland and I frequently felt lost because of how similar everything looks. The music is fine but nothing special. The story... is there, but I have no idea where it was going. Admittedly, I didn't finish the game, so maybe the story ends really strongly. But I think I have a good reason for quitting. I was somewhere in the second half of the game, fighting a boss, when it glitched and the boss disappeared. I'd already had a lot of glitches in this play session and was very frustrated, so I quit to the menu and tried to reload my game. Only, I somehow accidentally deleted it; no warning or confirmation pop up. Several hours gone, and I have no desire to go through that again.

I knew from other reviews what I was getting into - somewhat buggy, unpolished... but knowing this, in its current version it is frankly OK. I'm on my third playthrough. On the first, I tried to find the pacifist route and got softlocked. On the second, I did the normal route (defeating all the bosses), and now I'm doing the pacifist route again which I ended up finding. Apart from occasional clumsiness, it works OK and is good fun on my PC with XBox controller (according to another review, the controller is pretty much a prerequisite). My recommendation is to first play the game the normal route, exploring all the different abilities you get by defeating the bosses, and then the pacifist route (which is played with the fairy only). I feel that this should really come with the game's manual, so I'll explain here how to get the pacifist route. SPOILER ALERT if you want to find the pacifist route for yourself (SOFTLOCK RISK!) Pacifist route entry point HOWTO: * Find the key in the village (hint: you need to open a door) * Use the key do go down the well * Clear all the yellow rooms on the map (i.e. collect keys and upgrades). Hint: you need to bust open the three slugs. * After the slugs, you can go through the secret passage with the key. DO NOT open the door to the bottom right of the map, or your key will be gone, excluding you from the pacifist route and possibly resulting in a softlock if you move past the Dirt King (if you didn't collect the stamina upgrade).

I get the gimmick. The sword is heavy, and you strougle pulling it. Fine. Even if in the long term it'll annoy the player a lot. The fights get seriously annoying for bosses getting quicker while you stay slow,and get randomer patterns. Fine, I I'll pass them eventualy. The platformingis your usual indie hardness. Ok, I'll manage it at the start but if it'll start demanding combining forms-abilities - which it probably will - , I'll start thinking turning it off. I turn into an itty-bitty spider instead ofa giant monstrosity? A "bit" disappointing, but I understand.No explanation on how that form works? I figured out eventualy. Infinite head spawn enemies without warning? Surrrre... On the good side the graphic works, the music is passing, and the talks with the NPCs give flavour. On the very bad side, you get this Sonic-mechanic with crystals. Whatare they good for? I'll never know, as I had literaly 0 when reaching the first shop, the only one I've found . And it sold "item: unkown" Well, seems I'll never learn whatit is about. And that pisses me off. Make the pillars save with the crystals I have when touching them,and make me respawnwith all crystals reset to its place, and me with my collected resources. If not - well, at least I got this game for free.

The first screen you see is one telling you the usage of a controller is recommended. That's not really true. This game was not envisioned to be played with a mouse and keyboard. You need one. Everything, from the options menu to the keyboard bindings shows how not for a mouse and keyboard this game was made. The keyboard controls options are woefully inadequate and for some of us controllers just aren't an option. I never liked controllers while I was on Windows, and now that I'm using Linux controllers are completely out of the question. More often then not they are broken. That leaves me with only one option, mouse and keyboard - this game was not meant to be played that way. Hell, based on how the menu looks and behaves I'm not certain the game was ever really intended for computers in the first place - probably just released on pc as a result of the common Windows/Xbox architecture and the engine's support for the platform. I really don't know what else to say, this is just an incredibly lazy console port. I'm the kind of person that thinks skyrim is unplayable - on the PC - without the SkyUI mod. If you usually only play your games with a controller this might be more to your liking but for me this is a bust.

I am unable to get the game to run on any of my Windows computers, old or new. The game has been abandoned for years, and it's unlikely the problem will be ever fixed, so if the game is not on sale for pennies, I highly discourage any potential buyers to pay full price or at least don't be like me and only get to the game more than 30 days after purchase, so you can ask for a refund.