Indie Game of the Week 467: Minoria

Well bless my stars if it isn't another exploraction review from yours truly. Speaking of blessing (how the hell does Jan make these segues look so effortless?), we're back in the theological stylings of Brazilian team Bombservice with their 2019 game Minoria, not technically part of their long-running Momodora series but certainly stylistically akin. Minoria sees two warrior nuns, Sisters Semilla and Fran, tasked with defeating a coterie of witches led by the turncoat younger princess of the kingdom of Ramezia whom have already transformed the heart of the once-holy city into an arboreal supernatural nightmare and have the kingdom's elder princess in their custody. The mission is to infiltrate their coven and defeat the ringleaders, though it's hard to say whether they're necessarily more evil than the church who have been extremely punitive to any village or settlement that has even the slightest connection to witchcraft, as per the Inquisition era of medieval Europe. Semilla has been trained in the sword all her life and has become very effective at hunting witches, yet doubt about her role still casts a shadow over her heart given she was adopted by the church and turned into its weapon after it torched her hometown to the ground.

The witches have summoned several imps to protect themselves but they've been mostly little guys in hoods that are easily dispatched. Rumors claim there might be larger types out there but I'll be darned if I've ever seen one.

Minoria carries itself both stylistically and mechanically as a follow-up to the studio's Souls-inspired Momodora games yet in many ways feels less like a successor to that series and more like some smaller "gaiden" game to fill the time gap before the next big Momodora entry, in part because of its reduced complexity but also what feels like a visual downgrade after switching to polygonal characters from the crisp pixels of Momodora 4 (a.k.a. Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight, released in 2016). Minoria maintains Momodora's high level of difficulty and the way you take hits like a wet paper bag—typically two strong enemy attacks is enough to finish you off, and your healing potential is limited—but removes the corpse run mechanic seen in many exploraction games with a Souls flair, instead simply resetting your progress to the last time you saved. You have a few weapon types to choose between once you've found them but they all have the same damage values; it's simply a matter of which attack/combo patterns you prefer. You can supplement your standard melee attacks with spell-like incense: you have a limited number of charges of each, including the aforementioned healing incense, and they'll typically provide ranged attack options or buffs—these charges can only be refreshed by resting at a save point. There's also room for a couple of passives that might boost your attack power at low health or increase your XP gain. The latter is the primary (and, really, only) means of becoming stronger: as your level improves, as does your health, attack power, and defense, and thus your survivability. Finally, there's three permanent upgrades you can find, only two of which expand your traversal abilities (a double-jump and an air-dash, as you might expect).

This rudimentary sense generated by the combat system, which is otherwise satisfactory enough in its speed and how it controls, extends to all facets of Minoria. The map is very basic and only marks save points with no room for player input: it won't even change the background color for different areas of the game, like an early forested area or a sinister underground prison network below the cathedral where you start, nor is there a way to fast-travel until you reach the post-game and are free to sweep up any remaining collectibles you may have missed. There's a very small number of enemy types, but you'll occasionally meet instances of these foes that have way more strength and HP than usual but otherwise look identical: they don't even give these "elites" a palette swap to distinguish them. The level design is claustrophobic and in many cases where instead of filling a vertical room with footholds they'll just plop down these very elastic shrubs that bounce you up to the nearest stable platform; it's a little strange just how ubiquitous these bushes are, though the story does in some way justify the widespread unnatural plant growth given witches are bound to nature and draw their magical strength from same. On that note the worldbuilding's not too bad but given you only get a small window into what's going on here (there's some "archive" entries you can pick up that fleshes out the backstory and lore further) it's hard to say it justifies any investment in what's happening, at least to the extent that it makes its multiple-choice ending resonate beyond giving the devs an irksome excuse to make players go through the whole game again to see the other conclusion (or undertake some save file manipulation, at least).

This secret library is the game's hub/sanctuary, but the only thing to do here is talk to NPCs and buy new essences from its enigmatic custodian Harina in exchange for silver coin collectibles. It's nice to have a quiet haven away from the monsters and traps but, like a lot of this game's features, it seems a bit... bereft.

The resulting combination makes Minoria a hard sell in a period that saw continued growth in not just the visual complexity of this genre but also mechanical. 2019 also saw the debuts of the exquisitely macabre Blasphemous and the much more compelling 2D-but-polygonal Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, both of which are as indebted to the Castlevania blueprint as Minoria here. Minoria does offer a tight, challenging experience with some decent music and attractive (if occasionally beholden to "can see the seams" glitches) visuals though its crudity does hamper its ability to compete with just how expansive the Indie exploraction genre had and continues to become; keeping in mind that this genre has long since broken free of the limited confines of being simple, direct Metroid and Castlevania homages made by passionate fans to big dreamers looking to blaze new trails and forge new paths, fitting for a format of game already big on cartography. There's nothing at all objectionable about what Minoria provides here and if you're keen on Bombservice's particular brand of saturnine, religion-critical, female-led exploraction games that typically have at least one enormous boss with equally enormous boobs (hey, they have a type) then Minoria should still satisfy, though it'll be hard to escape the nagging feeling that it's a step down from their previous output at a juncture in this genre's rapid growth where they really need to be stepping up instead.

Rating: 3 out of 5.

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