Mandragora Impressions: What happens when you cross Trine with Dark Souls?

When I first booted up the Mandragora preview build, the first thing that came to my mind was Trine. The 2.5D perspective and the rather vibrant colours and settings initially made me think that this action-RPG might be barking more than it could bite. It took less than 20 minutes to realise how wrong I was.

You see, Mandragora is an action-RPG with Metroidvania elements. What this means is that while it may look like Trine in its art style and fantasy setting, its gameplay is more Blasphemous meets Dark Souls. It's challenging and can be a little frustrating, but most importantly, it requires a great deal of patience and problem-solving skills to be able to succeed.

While I'm not going to harp on about the narrative and storyline all too much right now, as frankly the preview build didn't do much to show this off in a good light (placeholder cutscenes will do that to a game, but considering its pre-launch with no firm release date or window in sight you can forgive this), the gameplay has been designed in such a way that requires a bit of player ingenuity. Your hand is not held through this game, you need to figure out where to go, how to approach mission objectives, how to best deal with new enemy types, all on top of avoiding environmental hazards and not losing your life and having to respawn at the last checkpoint. Should you die, you'll have to return to your death location to pick up lost essence all without dying in the process of this, else it will be lost forever - i.e. the Dark Souls kind of treatment.

The main way that Mandragora sets itself apart from other Metroidvania games is that this is a side-scroller. Essentially, while the world is built in such a way that you cannot reach a multitude of areas until you have unlocked specific items and abilities further through the story, you do get around the world by simply moving left and right. There is a degree of verticality as well, but not in the same way as other Metroidvanias like Metroid Dread, Disney Illusion Island, Dead Cells, Hollow Knight, and so forth. This more horizontal style of gameplay means that the world is easier to navigate, even if it does take a bit of the thrill out of the combat.

As for the combat, it's less about skill and more about timing. What I mean by this is that you'll have to overcome enemies by successfully evading their attacks and then striking in the short windows when they are vulnerable. There's no crucial parry mechanic at work here, so you can't look to just block, parry, attack, repeat. No, it's all about ducking and rolling out of the way of projectiles and enemy blows and then counter-attacking when the moment presents itself. While this style of combat does excel with its challenge, it does start feeling a little stale and repetitive, but fortunately the unique weapons and items and the different classes are looking to rectify that.

It's worth saying that in this preview build, I only got to test the knight-like Vanguard class, which revolves around close-quarters melee action. But there will also be options to play as ranged magic-users and more, to better shake up the combat and action. Then there's also the different weapons, items, and abilities you can find throughout the story that will open the way to harder hitting attacks, better defensive gear, and even unique attack types, but again, as this preview build was only relatively short, I didn't get a great taste of how this will be integrated into the full Mandragora experience.

What I will say from what I have been able to get hands-on with, is that the world seems like a very compelling place to explore. There are a collection of unique environments to travel through, and a huge variety of enemy types to overcome (or more likely, to get battered by). Similarly, the chunks of narrative that I did manage to piece together painted a rather interesting picture, one that will no doubt add a lot to the wider Mandragora experience when it debuts in full.

I'm not going to tell you that the preview build of Mandragora blew me away to such a degree that I'm now raring to check out the full build, but at the same time, I am looking forward to see how developer Primal Game Studio further enhances and iterates on what they have in time for launch whenever that may ultimately be.