There was a time when Metroidvania fans almost exclusively had the Castlevania series and some occasional adventures from Samus Aran to keep themselves entertained, but the past fifteen years has seen an almost unending feast of Meroidvanias to devour in a video game-like meal. So, with the promise of some refreshments to accompany our gaming gluttony – and at the risk of stretching this awkward analogy to breaking point – what does Bō: Path of the Teal Lotus bring to the table? Well, a sip of tea when you level up, for one thing.
Played from a 2.5D perspective, Bō: Path of the Teal Lotus is a visually sumptuous experience. The rich, hand-drawn characters and environments are silky smooth in their presentation. It’s a cliché, but in this case that doesn’t make it any less true; Bo: Path of the Teal Lotus looks like a carton brought to life.
Our protagonist, the celestial blossom Bō, has the pace and forward momentum of a high-end sports car, gliding through the levels with an elegance and ease that is only possible with the capable skills of a confident developer at the wheel. Bō, shockingly, is unable to double jump, so must utilise their Bō staff to navigate through the impressive and almost impossible verticality of the stages that Path of the Teal Lotus offers.
But a double jump is practically mandatory for the genre, and so thwacking an enemy or one of the many floating lantern-like objects enables Bō to store an additional jump that can be released to reach the seemingly unreachable. Developer Squid Shock Studios uses this simple mechanic to craft a smorgasbord of precision platforming. The controls will never let you down, but the demands on the player’s skills are palpable and often overwhelming, with one wrong input sending you to the bottom of your steep climb. As such, this can be a frustrating experience, though one that has you blaming your own middle-aged gaming ineptitude more than anything else.
Combat is solid and satisfyingly punchy, with Bō getting a surprising amount of mileage out of their Bō staff. One particular unlockable highlight involves the discovery that certain foes can be turned into a bowling ball with one good thwack, crunching through enemies and environments with glorious destructive glee. Bosses meanwhile are imposing challenges, suitably epic in scale, but suffering from some irritating difficulty spikes that flare up like a bad case of acne.
The story of Bō: Path of the Teal Lotus is fairly by the numbers, but the whip-smart and occasional very chucklesome dialogue helps elevate the narrative significantly. It’s in its depiction of Japanese Mythology that Bō: Path of the Teal Lotus truly excels however, offering a unique take on the creatures and demons that we have become so familiar with through playing video games for decades.
Bō: Path of the Teal Lotus then, stands out from its peers, which makes it all the more upsetting that, due to the recent tragic closure of Humble Games and the laying off of all its dedicated staff, this is the final release from the publisher. This understandably leaves Squid Shock Studios in rather uncertain waters. To shore up their support, the developer has started a Patreon to enable them to support their games, and we wish them the very best in their endeavour.
