Bionic Bay

It's always a delight to be pleasantly surprised by a video game. I tend to find that it happens less and less these days, but Mureena Oy and Psychoflow Studio's Bionic Bay is without a doubt a game that caught me off-guard. Without getting ahead of myself, let me just state right away that this is a game that nails its style and theme to a very fine degree, offering up an experience that will entertain and challenge, despite also being quite rudimentary in a multitude of places. So let's waste no further time, let's dive into why Bionic Bay could become your next platforming obsession.

For those unaware, Bionic Bay is a fast-paced puzzle platformer that follows a scientist who after a disastrous experiment finds himself trapped in a biomechanical world and possessing remarkable abilities. Using these skills, the aim is to hop, skip, and leap through the hazardous world all in the effort of finding the rest of your team, determining what went wrong, and likewise also locating an escape back to a familiar reality. Essentially, think of a fluid and tough platformer like Dustforce or Celeste, and now match that up with physics-based puzzling similar to what you'd find in Portal, all while playing from a perspective and in 2.5D levels that resemble Inside or Limbo. That may sound like a confusing combination, but in practice it works like a charm.

The gameplay of Bionic Bay revolves mainly around core platforming techniques. Again, this is a purely 2.5D game, which means you don't have to worry about the precision that comes with movement in a third-dimension. Instead, a huge amount of emphasis is placed on overcoming what immediately seems to be impossible gaps, absurdly chaotic traps and hazards, and stressful timed encounters. To do this, you can use basic movement actions like running, jumping, rolling, grabbing onto ledges, and a combination of all of these to unlock slightly more intricate movement techniques, such as rolling before leaping and then diving in mid-air to massively extend your leap distance. Adding to this are a slate of special abilities that you pick up along the journey, and these can include shifting gravity, being able to interact and swap places with objects, bouncing off specific lasers and hazards like a pinball, and more. It may, once more, seem complex but in practice it flows incredibly well and offers up just the right amount of challenge so that you don't feel too overwhelmed yet still get a lovely sense of accomplishment when you complete a level.

Mureena and the folks at Pyschoflow have worked wonders with the level design of Bionic Bay. Each level offers something different to master and overcome, keeping the player on their toes during every step of the journey. It's an admirable platformer in this regard, because you never become bored or too familiar with what's being presented. This is in part also down to the excellent artistic direction, which includes levels and an aesthetic that will constantly catch your eye with extravagant and vibrant use of colour. For a biomechanical world that uses a lot of darker colours, the way that the developer plays with colours, shadows, and luminous bright elements means that Bionic Bay will never let you down in a visual manner.

While the platforming, art style, and level structure is all of the highest quality, Bionic Bay does struggle a bit when it comes to audio and narrative. Talking about the latter, there's no dialogue in this game and little to no text, which means that the story is more something you interpret from the world around the character. This isn't quite managed as effectively as it could be, and as the game progresses you start to look past the story in favour of simply basking in the great and thrilling platforming and challenging gameplay. The same is also applicable to the audio. Without the help of a narrative and dialogue, the audio does struggle to stand out, ultimately being quite anonymous and forgettable.

But again, you don't come to a game like Bionic Bay for an audiovisual presentation of the same degree as say Planet of Lana or Ori and the Blind Forest. This is a game for those looking for thrilling and tight platforming, and on this front the game exceeds with flying colours. The developers note that this a speedrunner's dream and it's hard to dispute that, even if a regular player will find joy from simply chugging through the game at their own pace, which typically can be quite fast thanks to the well-refined platforming and movement systems and the great level design. When you combine this with online support that allows you to race other players in these challenging and fluid levels, and even notch your score on leaderboards, it's increasingly clear that this will be a top game for fans of more demanding platforming.

Bionic Bay and its tough and demanding action won't be for the platforming fans out there who bask in the delight of Spyro the Dragon or Kirby, but those who enjoy the increased challenge that comes from Crash Bandicoot and games like Mario Maker will absolutely fall in love with this game. It does enough from a gameplay and level design point of view to stand out, all while the art direction and visuals continue to attract and hold your attention. Sure, it could do with a bit of extra focus from a narrative standpoint to make its campaign more memorable, and the audio and soundtrack is serviceable at best, but other than these minor problems, Bionic Bay impresses and is absolutely a game that platformer fans should be keeping an eye on.