Its a tale as old as time itself. The hero rescues the princess from the evil villain, and its one that video games have taken to very well. From Mario and Peach, to Link and Zelda we know how the story goes…..or do we? What if we decided to reverse the roles and how the story is told? What if you were the villain kidnapping the princess? This is the world of Nefarious.
You play as Crow, a villain with aspirations of conquering the world. To do this, you must kidnap various princesses, simple right? I cannot explain it but Nefarious is just one of the most charming games I have ever played. Every bit of it, from the amazing artwork, to the excellent animation and humor is just excellent. So much love and dedication was put into this game and the effort paid off.
Nefarious takes every cliché and trope about video games and turns them on their head. You don’t have boss fights, because you are the boss. You have reverse boss fights, which are even more awesome than they sound. These parody almost every genre of gaming and leave nothing untouched. Someone actually took a look at the absurdities of gaming and made a game based around them.
The music is amazing, with some really catchy tunes. You can collect more music and, without giving a spoiler, you can do some really fun things with it. I feel like the music is a cut above the usual indie fare. It just feels so good, and I can’t explain it, it just works well.
That isn’t to say the game is perfect though, and there are issues. The first is that the game had some control issues, with the controls not recognizing my gamepad at times, and other times getting a bit nonresponsive at key moments. This was annoying and I hope it can be fixed in the future if a patch is not already in the works. It didn’t hurt the game completely in my eyes but did get in the way.
Nefarious just builds its universe organically within the game. Everyone is introduced as if they have already been there for years, and the player doesn’t feel like they are strangers. Becky, Crow’s right hand woman, is an awesome character. She comes across as the straight man of the two, and along the lines of characters like Spock. Princesses like Princess Mayapple ( who is basically a stand in for Princess Peach), come off as fully developed and unique people. I want to see more of the game’s universe and one of the endings implies there will be a sequel that continues to flip the experience.
I think Nefarious is a game that everyone should check out. It is just amazing, and if the control issue is fixed, it will be perfect. I recommend this!
A review code was provided for this review.